THE GAA’s Fixtures Task Force has called on the association to crack down on inter-county managers riding roughshod over club fixtures – despite putting forward two proposals to increase the number of inter-county games.
Its report was released at Croke Park yesterday, in which two proposals were put forward that would radically change the shape of the All-Ireland SFC.
The recommendations – first revealed in The Irish News in September – are to redraw the provincial championships into four pots of eight, or to use the current National League structure as the basis for the championship in summer, with the provincial competitions played earlier in the year.
Both were revealed with two different scheduling options, one of which would push the All-Ireland finals back into their traditional berth in late September.
The option to do that would see inter-county and club fixtures take alternate windows between the end of March and the end of July. There would be just one designated club weekend across August and September.
Club games would be played on two consecutive weekends and inter-county players would be available to their clubs on each of the nine designated weekends between March and July, and from beyond the All-Ireland finals.
The two club weekends would be followed by a weekend of ‘inter-county preparation’, on which club games would be played without county players. The following two weekends would then contain inter-county games, and that schedule would continue through the summer.
However, of its total of 32 recommendations, the Task Force – from which the CPA controversially withdrew at the 11th hour – has made five key points on the need to properly govern the area of club fixtures being imposed on by inter-county teams.
It wants to introduce a new governance and oversight committee that will be given the remit to strictly apply rules.
“Clubs and club delegates have a responsibility to hold their county committees to account, but a culture has developed where, frequently, the short-term needs of the few (the county panel) are being placed before the needs of the many (club players) at county committee level,” said the task force report.
“If there is to be significant progress in improving the situation of club players and providing greater consistency and certainty there needs to be, in the Task Force’s view, a fresh approach by the GAA in terms of governance and oversight arrangements.”
Adding that there was “clearly no lack of rules in place to address the issues at hand”, the task force recommended the appointment of at least one employee in each province who would oversee the counties’ adherence to the rules, including breaching the closed season, which would be reset as from the end of a county’s championship campaign until December 1 under the proposals.
“We believe it is imperative to meet the desire to see an improvement in how club fixture programmes are designed to run-off within counties. Adequate resources, properly trained, must be put in place to ensure it happens.”
