League match postponed, but tensions remain in place

The decision by Croke Park to postpone Sunday's NFL match between Longford and Donegal has done little to ease the tensions caused by the row over home advantage in the fixture.

Both counties believed that they were due a home fixture for the match, which was announced during the week initially as being set for Donegal and subsequently for Longford.

"A request for a postponement from Donegal was deemed fair and reasonable in the circumstances in order to allow some time to resolve the impasse that has arisen," ran the GAA statement. "The Games Administration Committee is requesting both counties to attend a meeting of the committee at the earliest possible opportunity to allow the matter to be discussed."

There was confusion because the draft fixture-list given the go-ahead by Central Council before Christmas was not the one sent out by the GAC during the week.

Longford had applied for four home matches and this was granted with their fixture against Donegal fixed for Pearse Park by Central Council. This would have left Donegal with only two home matches - a schedule at variance with the normal ratio of four-and-three or three-and-four.

Longford County Board, however, are believed to have contacted Croke Park disagreeing with the postponement and were meeting late last night to discuss their next move. Earlier, county chair Martin Skelly questioned the point of any proposed meeting. "I can't understand it. If a match is passed at the highest level to be played at Pearse Park I do not understand what any meeting would be about.

"When we discussed this at our county executive we couldn't see when a postponed would be played. April 2nd has been mentioned, but we would hope to be still involved in the under-21 championship at that stage.

"We looked for a fourth game at home and essentially we got it. We put our case and a decision was delivered based on that. We're very angry about the disruption to management and players. Staging a game takes a good bit of preparation and a lot of work goes into organising these things."

Skelly's Donegal counterpart Charlie O'Donnell was sticking to his point of view. "We've no problem with Longford. My problem is that something happened to cause a dispute. We can't be asked to play two home matches and five away when everyone else has at least three games at home."

It has been suggested that the issue of Donegal playing five away matches arose at Central Council when attention was drawn to the imbalance, but in response it was pointed out the county requested to play their match against London away from home in order to attend a club function.

This meant Donegal had originally been given three home ties, including the trip to Longford, but had voluntarily opted to switch one of the home matches in order to travel to London.

O'Donnell denied that this had been the case. "That was never agreed at Central Council. As far as I'm aware no requests were made relating to the London game. If we had asked for our London game to be switched and had originally been given that as a home fixture it would mean that London were down to play five away fixtures - which, as we know, never happens."

The postponement will cause some fixture congestion with the remainder of the NFL due to be run off over five of the next six weeks.

Longford are expected to release a further statement this afternoon.