Hurling revamp hits a snag

The Hurling Development Committee proposals to revamp the inter-county championships will effectively have to command a two-thirds majority of next month's annual congress.

Although GAA president Seán Kelly said last week that the proposals, put forward as a two-year experiment, would require a simple majority, an enabling clause will first have to be passed if the debate is to be heard.

Motion 20, proposed by Central Council, comprises the blueprint of the HDC, chiefly restricting the All-Ireland provincial championships to the 12 counties in Division One of the NHL and providing second and third tier championships for other counties.

Cork, one of the counties opposing these plans, has tabled its own proposal, motion 21, which simply seeks to enshrine in the rulebook the status quo. Under normal circumstances motion 20, as an experimental proposal, would require only a simple majority; the Cork motion, as a permanent change of rule, requires the two-thirds.

Complicating this is a provision that was accepted at last year's congress. Motion 8, from the Connacht Council, proposed that the current championship system (then an experimental format whose trial period had elapsed) be extended for a further year and that "a Congress in 2004 shall adopt in Rule form formats for the All-Ireland championships in hurling and football".

Connacht Council secretary John Prenty says that the purpose of the motion was more to extend the trial period, which had elapsed, than to prescribe a course of action for this year's Congress. "We were asking for it to be continued for another year. I don't think we were necessarily saying that we didn't want any more experiments."

None the less recognising that this motion was passed, Central Council included in Motion 20 the provision that "Congress rescind its decision, taken at Congress 2003, on foot of Motion 8 . . . ".

Croke Park sources say that there is likely to be two votes on the issue: one to set aside last year's decision, which will require a two-thirds majority, and another to decide on the proposals, which will require a simple plurality. But unless there are a number of delegates opposed to the proposals but willing to allow their discussion go ahead, the proposals themselves will effectively need the weighted majority.

So far there are a number of hurling counties opposed to the proposals. Cork, Kilkenny and Antrim will vote against and the intentions of Limerick are uncertain. Tipperary and Waterford, originally sceptical, have been talked around but the big battleground is expected to be among the non-traditional hurling counties, who have been targeted as beneficiaries of the proposals with the introduction of realistically pitched championships for different levels.

Pat Dunny, chair of the HDC, has conducted a thorough campaign of information and persuasion amongst such counties and is said to be confident that the logic of the committee's ideas has been widely accepted and that a two-thirds majority is achievable.

One fear within the HDC is that the matter could be turned into a procedural bun fight on the grounds that last year's Congress decided against further experimentation but the key vote here will be that on setting aside Motion 8 from 2003.

There may also be argument that the whole of this year's Motion 20 should be taken together - effectively tying the whole blueprint into a weighted-majority requirement - but last year's disciplinary package was taken on a piecemeal basis in order that all provisions could be explained and voted on in sequential blocks.

Meanwhile the GAA have announced that next year's Vodaphone All Stars tour will be to Hong Kong. The weekend's Management Committee meeting has approved the acceptance of an invitation from the former colony's Irish community.

The football selections from 2003 and 2004 will travel next January in what will be the fifth trip abroad since the exhibition tours were resumed in 2001. Previous years have seen the hurlers visit Buenos Aires and Phoenix while the footballers have been to Dubai and San Diego.

The Hong Kong GAA club was founded in 1995 and last year hosted the Asian Gaelic Games for the first time.