League may revert to four hierarchical divisions

The GAA's competitions review is due before the Management Committee this Saturday. The hurling and football proposals will be put by the review groups' respective chairpersons, Pat Day, Croke Park's head of games, and Páraic Duffy, former chair of the GAC.

"We finished work last week," said Duffy, "and have presented the proposals to GAC. I would expect that there'll be a media launch at some stage next week."

A number of the proposals have already leaked out, suggesting that the National Football League will revert to the old system of four hierarchical divisions of eight counties. These would be decided on the basis of final standings and wouldn't involve any play-off stages.

In terms of the championship the qualifier format would remain despite some urgings that it be curtailed to allow more time for club activities. Another feature of the season, the calendar year, is set to remain although there had been suggestions that use of the autumn and winter months would free up some useful time for club fixtures.

"I'm aware of the speculation," said Duffy, "and it's not a hundred miles away. I'm not in a position to go into the details until it's been released but there's a good bit more in the report."

The review was flagged during GAA president Nickey Brennan's inaugural speech to congress last April.

In that address Brennan said: "While both our senior championships continue to deliver high-quality skill and entertainment, I don't believe we have got the formula quite right yet. The three-tier hurling championship is a definite plus but we need another year of the present format in the senior grade before drawing final conclusions.

"The reality with the senior football championship is that many counties have no chance of success. Since 1970 eight teams have captured the MacCarthy Cup, while in that same period of time only three more counties captured the Sam Maguire Cup.

"A recent suggestion that some first-round provincial championship losers (based on an agreed grading system) would play in the Tommy Murphy Cup, where the eventual winner would re-enter the championship at a later stage, is worthy of serious consideration. The Tommy Murphy Cup would then be deemed to be part of the championship process."

According to Duffy the football review was based on four considerations: "Firstly we wanted to look at the league and championship from the point of view of weaker teams and see what could be done to deliver more meaningful competition.

"We also had to consider the balance of fixtures between club and county. There have been some horror stories from around the country about the tiny number of matches club players are getting and the influence of county managers in getting fixtures called off.

"In terms of the senior football championship, there was only so much that could be done because the committee was limited by the fact that there was no serious prospect of doing away with the provincial championships. Finally we decided that we would more than likely stick with the calendar-year format for the football season."