Páraic Duffy reveals changes to All-Ireland reform proposals

GAA director general Páraic Duffy has made some running repairs to his proposed reform of the All-Ireland football championship, which "aims to address some of the issues raised at the time of the original publication".

The expanded proposal directly addresses some of those issues, including the concern that the proposed format was largely money driven, and would cause yet further traffic in an already gridlocked GAA’s calendar.

The original document, published on August 4th, sought to replace the All-Ireland quarter-finals with two groups of four: the provincial championships will be untouched while the qualifiers will be slightly altered.

This, Duffy said at the time, is an effort to address “persistent criticism that the current championship format has grown lacklustre” and “unhealthy predictability” of the Leinster and Munster football championships.

If passed by Central Council, the new format would be brought to next year’s Congress in a number of separate motions, each needing a two thirds majority, that cannot be adopted until 2018. The group format would add eight inter-county matches to the calendar but the National League semi-finals are to be abolished.

Under the revised proposals, four round robin games would be played in Croke Park in the first round, followed by four in the home grounds of the provincial champions. The qualifiers would have home advantage for the final round.

With the All-Ireland hurling and football finals to be completed in August, opening up September for club activity, the provincial championships would be brought forward by several weeks. Extra-time would also be played as required and Ulster would have to abandon the policy of playing their football championship over eight weekends, instead doubling up on quarter-finals with Saturday/Sunday games.

To those critics who accused of it being money-making, Duffy now says: “This is a lazy and cynical view, to which there is an obvious rebuttal: if this proposal had been made for reasons of financial gain, it would not seek to reduce the number of replays, nor propose that we play eight of the twelve group games outside Croke Park.

“It is important to stress that it is also proposed that a significant proportion of any additional revenue arising from the group matches be ring-fenced for the development of games in less successful counties.”

He also responded to the suggestion there are better championship models out there: “The Association engaged in a lengthy and thorough process last year in which it considered nineteen different proposals on championship reform.

“None of them gained significant support. No one is claiming that this is the perfect solution, or that it is a panacea to address the perceived ills of the football championship structure, but it does have the potential to invigorate the championship and at the same time to restore a better balance between club and inter-county fixtures.”

According to a statement from Croke Park, “we are encouraging anyone interested in Gaelic football and the GAA in general to read the document in its entirety leading to an informed debate in the coming weeks and months.”

At last month’s county board meeting in Thurles, it was confirmed that Tipperary would not support Duffy’s blueprint for change in its current guise: Tipperary famously reached the semi-final of the competition last month, for the first time in 81 years, and had concern that the round-robin system favours traditionally stronger counties and that a repeat performance would prove much more difficult.