Football

We will solve fixtures problem: GAA President Aogán Ó Fearghail

Aogán Ó Fearghail says the GAA has never been more relevant
Aogán Ó Fearghail says the GAA has never been more relevant Aogán Ó Fearghail says the GAA has never been more relevant

GAA President Aogán Ó Fearghail says the Association is close to delivering a tighter inter-county calendar for 2018 that will give greater space for club activity.

At his unveiling as President two years ago in the Slieve Russell Hotel, Co Cavan, the central tenet of Ó Fearghail’s mission statement was to solve the fixtures chaos.

Speaking at the Ulster Championship launch in Derry last week, the Drumgoon native revealed there would be greater clarity on the thorny issue of fixtures at Central Council’s June meeting.

Ó Fearghail also confirmed the National Football Leagues would start earlier next year and that all provincial councils have agreed to tighten their championship time-frames ahead of next summer.

“We have worked very hard with our fixtures analysts committee at Croke Park and with our CCC and I’ve had an overview of everything they’ve been doing along with Paraic [Duffy],” said Ó Fearghail.

“We hope now to send out to Central Council before the June meeting a substantial document that will show them clearly what the inter-county championship can and will look like next year.

“We will be starting Leagues a little earlier; we finished them this year on April 4. I think we can bring them back another little bit.

“And we will clear April and May for clubs. This is what it’s always been about.”

The Cavan man acknowledged there would always be a minority of GAA membership that will “whinge” but the vast majority will back the mooted changes.

“We can whinge, we can cry and we can give out but my experiences of the GAA are, you always better to take stock, examine what can be done and do it. I’m into solutions.

“So we will have that area free [April and May] for clubs, we’re going to have a much more exciting inter-county competition because we’re going to have a game every weekend.

“You take a county like Donegal this year in the Championship - they will play their match and they’ll be waiting another couple of weeks – no club activity happens.

“That won’t happen in our new programme. They’ll be playing every week. It will be played in a tighter time-frame, finished towards the middle-end of August and the rest is for clubs…”

This year’s Ulster Championship will be played between May 20 and July 16 and while Ulster officialdom have agreed to stage two games – Monaghan versus Fermanagh (preliminary round game) and Donegal versus Antrim (quarter-final game) – over this weekend, there is still plenty of room for tightening the series.

A consequence of drifting away from standalone weekends for the Ulster Championship could be a reduction in revenue for the Ulster Council.

But the President insists the revenue stream from the ‘Super 8’ – the new round-robin quarter-final phase, which begins in 2018 – will help offset any potential losses in the four provinces.

“With the increased number of football games at the quarter-final stages [of the All-Ireland] the revenues will increase and we have given an absolute commitment and we’ve written it into the agreement of Congress, any additional monies – because there will be additional monies from the quarter-finals – that that will be used to develop the game in less successful counties,” said Ó Fearghail.

“We have given that commitment. So if a county has been operating in Division Three or Division Four over a long period of years, they will be getting substantially increased revenues.

“All four provincial Championships in football are strong, but Leinster has been declining, and we accept that.

“But that doesn’t mean we need to dismantle it. So the agreements we have in place are certainly retaining the provincial Championships but there will be a much more exciting finish to the whole competition.”

The GAA’s top brass was roundly criticised for not allowing the Club Players Association [CPA] to address Congress earlier this year after the new body rejected out of hand the ‘Super 8’ proposal.

But there have been subsequent talks between the CPA and GAA leaderships.

“We’ve been working on this for two years,” said the President.

“So the lads on the CPA are saying and reflecting what I’ve been saying myself. I said when I came in as President that we need more space for our clubs and I said we need to have a fixtures programme that is much more clearly defined and we need to know when we are playing.”

Ó Fearghail pointed to the GAA’s holistic approach and, in particular, tweaking the underage structures.

“When I came in as President I said that Central Council would lead on changes because, in the past, we had different work groups and people saying what needs to happen. It never happened.

“Central Council always needs to take the lead and we’ve made substantial changes over a two-year period: U21s are back to U20 and with minor; if you’re an U17 you cannot play in an adult team.

“Congress, very wisely, decided this year to make sure our All-Ireland finals would be completed by the end of August. That’s a substantial change.

“We will have some replays but not many and we also got agreement from the provincial councils – I got that personally from each of the four provincial chairmen – that they could condense it [provincial Championships] even more.”

And the senior hurling Championship could be given a similar makeover to football with a round robin being floated, even though this has been tried before with little success.

“A lot of counties supported us at Congress, but they all said to me, particularly hurling counties: ‘If we have a lot more exciting football matches at the end, we support that, but hurling could be swamped. Don’t let that happen.’

“I gave them a commitment it will not happen. So straight after Congress we asked the Hurling Development Committee to see if they can devise a more exciting conclusion to the hurling competition, along the lines of football.

“And we also have written a substantial letter – myself and the Ard Stiurthoir - to the CCC asking them to come up with a formula, and they are almost there with that.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Ó Fearghail rejected the notion that there was significant dissent over the continued media rights deal with pay-per-view channel Sky Sports.

“Well, first of all there isn’t a Sky deal – there is a media rights deal,” he said.

“There are over 100 games being broadcast in a year, which is incredible for an amateur association.

“The vast majority of them are on TG4 which I’m thrilled about, a big bulk of them are on RTE which I’m delighted about. We have to be fair.

“There are large parts of the Glens of Antrim where you cannot get RTE. Only for a station like Sky they mightn’t see anything.

“But much more crucial is people in Warwickshire and in London who couldn’t see our games in the past, they now can. Twenty years ago all we had in football was the two semi-finals and the final. That was it.

“Very few people I meet ever raise it [GAA games pay-walled] with me. People are happy with it. The crucial thing is the vast majority of our games should be free-to-air, and they are.

“And that should remain – all our provincial finals and semi-finals and finals. I listened very carefully to Ryle Nugent, head of RTE sport, who was interviewed after the media rights deal and he said that RTE had received everything they looked for. That’s an important point. RTE got exactly what they looked for.”

Asked about the sometimes scathing criticisms of GAA players on RTE, Ó Fearghail replied: “Overall, RTE do a very good job. Their commentary teams are very good and I think they’ve upped their game.

“The crucial thing is the game.

“Watching Gaelic football on TV is a great experience. But, I have to be honest, and this is a personal view, hurling is not the same on TV.

“The only place to watch a hurling match is at it. That’s no criticism of television; I just think it’s impossible to recreate the atmosphere and intensity of a hurling game.

“Punditry is a different matter and I believe, like everything in life, people should always focus on the subject, not the personality.

“Sometimes people get criticised in a heavily personalised way and I regret that.”

Ó Fearghail hasn’t been insulated from some personalised digs either during his presidency.

“I don’t like constant negativity,” he said.

“That would bother me because it bothers our members. And there are some people that can’t see any good in what is happening at all, that there is nothing right. Yes, it’s nasty and it’s unfortunate but there is that whinge factor in Ireland, unfortunately.

“But it is at a minority level. I never hear any of it when I go out to clubs. They’re all in a good space. These are positive people. It’s not easy keeping a GAA club going but you won’t keep it going if you constantly see the problems and I get great energy that our clubs are all moving forward.

“People will always criticise you. One of the great things about the GAA is that we’re so relevant. If you were ignored, then you’d have a problem.

“I meet other sporting bodies all the time and they all say to me they wish that they had the levels of attention and interest that the GAA has.

“I don’t mind people criticising but a lot of it is ill-informed which is unfortunate. A lot of people just like to give out. That’s fine. It happens.”

With still 10 months of his tenure still to run, the 57-year-old Cavan man says the GAA presidency has been “everything and more” but admits there is more work to be done in relation to encouraging people from non-traditional GAA backgrounds to get involved.

“There were a lot of places that people didn’t always see the GAA as something that was for them,” he said.

“We’re now respected, I believe, by everyone. There is always a challenge within the north of making sure that everybody matters. I’d love to see us make even more progress there.

“We are open to everybody. I believe in inclusivity. Everybody should and can belong to a GAA club and I’m delighted that there are substantial numbers that are members of GAA clubs from non-traditional GAA backgrounds. That’s an area we will continue to work on.”

He added: “We have never had as many people playing our games. There is more excitement, more relevance, more interest in the GAA than ever before.

“We’re engrained everywhere and we’re growing worldwide. That’s not a strategic plan; it’s just happening. It’s just our organic growth.”