Football

Lives come before games says GAA Director of Communications Alan Milton

Down are in the top two in Division Three and looking well set for promotion and Tier One but will the rest of the League be played? Picture Mark Marlow.
Down are in the top two in Division Three and looking well set for promotion and Tier One but will the rest of the League be played? Picture Mark Marlow. Down are in the top two in Division Three and looking well set for promotion and Tier One but will the rest of the League be played? Picture Mark Marlow.

THE National Football Leagues may remain unfinished if the current ban on GAA activity until March 29th is extended and that could have a knock-on effect for the proposed two-tier Championship system.

Currently the GAA is in a two-week lockdown to stem the spread of Coronavirus and GAA Director of Communications Alan Milton says he is confident that if the ban is lifted after that period then the final two rounds of the League will be played.

But if the lockdown continues into April (and possibly beyond then) county fixtures could move from a postponement phase into cancellation and, since relegation and promotion issues would be unresolved, the introduction of the Tailteann Cup (the second tier Championship competition) could have to wait until 2021.

“If the break was only going to be two weeks I would be confident we can rearrange things, realign weekends and re-designate them but we don’t know how long this break is going to be so it’s absolutely impossible to say,” Milton told The Irish News yesterday.

“When we do have a better handle on how long the break is going to be we can make decisions. We have been doing some modelling on the weekends that will be available to us in different scenarios but it’s not prudent to go into that publicly because we simply don’t know if it’s going to be needed.

“We are very much in limbo like every other entity on the island; we don’t know what shape this is going to take. I think we have to put it into a bit of perspective – these are games, peoples’ lives are the issue here and it’s incumbent on the GAA to do everything that we can to ensure that public health is the number one priority in this instance.”

Should the ban end on March 29th, the first two weeks of April – officially designated as a ‘club only’ month – could be used to settle outstanding issues in the Football and Hurling Leagues. However, an extension of the lockdown would make that impossible.

“It’s possible that no games will take place in April,” Milton warned.

“If this scenario continues and we’re still in lockdown then even clubs won’t be playing in April so we simply don’t know. We’ve followed the HSE (Health Service Executive) guidelines from the get-go; we’ve been in contact with them for over three weeks’ on this.

“They will advise on March 29th, or on the days coming up to March 29th, what it is we have to do or what’s expect of us and I would be surprised if we were found wanting, in fact I know we won’t be found wanting.

“We’ll take our lead from medical experts but as things stand it’s possible that the club month won’t even have club activity nevermind the possibility of county games.”

As far as the two tier championship plan is concerned, Milton was unable to give any guarantees but he conceded that the introduction of the Tailteann Cup could be delayed until 2021.

“That’s another issue that’s in the spotlight,” he said.

“Again, if we were only out for two weeks I’d be confident that we would get that sorted in time but if it goes beyond two weeks that poses a very different question.

“There’s a whole set of proposals that would have to be looked at as to whether or not that competition would be able to proceed in this calendar year or not but we’re not there yet, we can’t make that call at this time.

“We’re in the realm of speculation. If we can’t get games played we’d have to look at postponing the two-tier system until 2021 but at the moment we’re hopeful that won’t be the case. After two weeks we’ll be in a better position to have that conversation but not before.”