Level out championship playing field

It is not easy being from Sligo these days. It is bad enough that the Sligo county board £30,000 Millennium Draw was won by the Galway county board, but Sligo Rovers being beaten 5-0 by Galway United last weekend didn't help. And is there any county in the world - I mean the world - which would be required to beat Roscommon, Mayo and Galway in order to win the Connacht championship?

That is what faces Sligo this year. Even if they managed that they would then have to beat two other provincial champions to win the All Ireland title. Is there no justice? In this column, for a number of years, the idea of an open draw has been mooted or even proclaimed. In recent times the GAA has introduced the "back door" in hurling and, it has to be admitted, it has worked quite well. Ask Clare or Offaly.

In football, alterations have been made to the National League and some more will come into effect presently. There is no "written in stone" programme, therefore, with regards the All Ireland championship and yet the provincial system remains the same.

This involves one team emerging from 12 counties (Leinster), one from nine (Ulster), one from five (Munster) and one from seven (Connacht). Connacht now includes London and New York.

The situation, as outlined above, is grossly unfair. This brings me back to the situation in which Sligo finds itself this year. Let us put aside London and New York for the moment and ask the question - is there any other county in Ireland which would relish having to beat Roscommon, Mayo and Galway in order to get into the semi-final of the All Ireland championship?

What all of this posits, is that the GAA must look at its structures if equity is to be achieved. The present structure is not equitable.

What the GAA must beware of, is that other sports have moved forward and have accepted that there is enormous competition for young people. It has moved forward in many ways, most notably with the continuing development of Croke Park.

Further progress must now be addressed. It is all very well to reflect on the traditions of the provincial system but reflection is not sufficient because the provincial system, itself, is not geared to an equitable outcome.

The situation of Sligo is not unique. There have been many occasions when Cork or Kerry teams have knocked each other out before the semi-finals.

Similarly teams like Down, Armagh, Derry, Tyrone or Donegal in Ulster have lost out as have Meath, Dublin, Offaly and Kildare in Leinster. In Connacht itself great Roscommon, Mayo and Galway teams have knocked each other out when all had All Ireland potential.

The question has to be asked: how many young people have turned their backs on the GAA because of this system? Certainly in Sligo, of which I know a little, several generations of players were lost to the county because of the infamous "foreign games" rule.

As a result of that the Sligo county board lost many highly talented players who had little time for being lectured about what games they should play or being told that they were less Irish because they played soccer or rugby. The GAA now faces a different challenge as professionalism comes into the reckoning in many previously amateur sports. Prominent GAA players have emerged recently and have made, demands, in regard to the provision of insurance cover, playing equipment, travel and meal allowances and so on.

These are not outrageous demands in the climate in which we live. But a level playing field has to be accepted and, if the GAA is to remain on that playing field, it must accept that outdated structures must be looked at in an open and honest way.

Out-dated concepts which dictate that four provinces - one of 12, one of nine, one of six and one of five - all are delineated as equal when it comes to putting a semi-finalist through is injust. The solution is that a seeded open draw be made, based, on the results of the previous year or the performances in the National League. In that way each county team would be encouraged, in the first place, to be as successful as possible so that a passage to the later stages would open up.

Clearly from that the last eight of the previous championship would be seeded for the next year and so on. If that situation resulted in the loss of prestige for provincial councils, well so be it.

In any event it would be most unlikely that Sligo would be presented with a programme which would require them to beat three of the best counties in the country in order to win the Connacht championship!