Abolishment threat to championship recedes

Under-21 Football Championship final:With this year's final due for decision on Saturday, the prospect of the under-21 football championship being abolished is receding.

Páraic Duffy, the GAA's Player Welfare Manager, who publicly suggested that the intercounty championship at that level should be removed from the calendar in order to reduce the pressure on players, conceded yesterday the radical departure hadn't attracted a great deal of support during the deliberations of the committee appointed to investigate causes of and solutions to player burnout.

"I suppose I would be less optimistic now than I was a few months ago about the possibility of doing away with the competition. We did seek submission from counties, players and different groups. I would sense that there isn't sufficient support for the idea.

"It's part of what we're looking at, at the moment in terms of burnout and other possibilities are being put forward. One is restricting it, such as anyone playing in the National League can't play in the under-21 championship.

"Also restricting it in terms of age - ruling out minors or even under-19s. I would still feel that it causes more problems than it's worth but I'm not so sure that's widely enough shared to bring such a change about."

"I'd have to say the view that we've got from county boards, who have discussed it is that they don't want it done away with and that we should find ways around it."

Duffy originally made his feelings clear in the report to last autumn's special congress, which addressed ways of freeing up extra weekends from intercounty commitments in order to benefit club schedules.

The issue of burnout concerns much the same area of restricting fixture commitments.

The idea of abolishing the under-21 championship is confined to intercounty and football. According to Duffy the hurling equivalent isn't a problem, as it takes place during the summer and doesn't run into the same congestion as its football counterpart, which runs from February to May, coinciding with third-level competition and the National Football League.

"It doesn't cut across the Fitzgibbon Cup the way the football does across the Sigerson," he says, "and it doesn't cut across the National League because it's played during the summer. You also have to look at hurling - its developmental needs are always different to football.

"I still think we can't go on the way we're going. John Maughan (Roscommon manager), who made a contribution to the committee, pointed out you had players expected to play under-21 on Saturday and league on Sunday. That's simply bad practice.

"On the burnout committee we've had presentations from experts on the medical issues around over-training, on the psychological issues and Niall Moyna on the physiological issues.

"I'm still convinced that something has to give and that the best thing would be the under-21 but I wouldn't be optimistic about getting a clean break with the competition."

The report on the issue of player burnout is due to be published next month and it is hoped by the committee that their proposals will be enforceable rather than just recommendations and also that the measures can be largely accepted by Central Council rather than needing rule changes at congress.