GAA director general Paraic Duffy has defended a controversial proposal that would make the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship a two-tier competition.
Speaking at the launch of his annual report at Croke Park yesterday, Monaghan native Duffy referred to a motion to change the current system so that Division Four teams would play in their provincial Championship, but would enter a separate series instead of the Qualifiers if they lost their first game.
The GAA’s Annual Congress will consider the proposal next month and Duffy countered the “negative commentary” it has provoked.
“One of the criticisms made was that everybody should have the right to win Sam – everybody has the right to win Sam,” said Duffy who stressed that he “wasn’t making a case” for the new structure.
“Everybody starts off in the provincial Championships.
“The second point I’d make is: How many counties run their competitions on the basis that everybody plays on the same basis in one championship?
“I know in Monaghan that if we were to say we have 30 clubs and all 30 clubs will play in the one championship, they’d say: ‘What? That’s not fair, sure how can you possibly expect the small clubs to compete with the big ones?’
“That’s what they would say, yet we’re arguing here that everybody should be in exactly the same situation [at county level], all 32 with the same chance. That’s the argument.”
Duffy – who revealed that two additional proposals will be published later this week – drew comparisons between the proposed new football structure and the model that already operates in hurling.
“In hurling we have a top tier, we have a Christy Ring Cup and the winners of the Christy Ring Cup go into the Qualifier the following year.
“That’s exactly the same as this motion proposes.”
Duffy also explained why the GAA had rejected a proposal by the Gaelic Players’ Association (GPA) which had called for radical changes to the current football Championship make-up.
“The first thing was it would double the number of Championship games, almost,” he said.
“You’d go from 61 to 116. So clearly you cannot have a principle that says we want to protect the club game and then turn around and recommend a proposal that increases the number of Championship games from 61 to 116.
“The second problem was, under the system advocated by the GPA, you have the inter-provincial Championships, which would be over in May, and then you start the All-Ireland Championship with all
32 counties in it with eight groups of four.
“A Division One team in each group, Division Two, Division Three and Division Four, which meant, let’s face it, we’re going to have more one-sided games because every one of those groups would have a Division One team playing a Division Four team.
“The third one was, I suppose, that it would dilute the knockout aspect of the Championship. These eight groups of round-robin.
“The problem was, you’re going to play 48 round-robin games, at the end of which only eight teams would be eliminated. You still have 24 teams left having played the 48 games. The history of the GAA with round-robin has not been good.
“And the other concern they had was the provincial Championship would end in early May and there was a sense that there’s no great reward for winning the provincial championship because the seedings for the All-Ireland series were based on the National League, so the National League would be far more important in terms of your Championship situation.
“Some of the criticism we’ve got in the last few weeks in relation to this is that the GPA did not get a fair hearing. It got a really fair hearing and they’re the reasons why.”
