Dublin are pushing for a top division with eight teams

Uncertainty still surrounds both the nature and possible outcome of Saturday’s Central Council debate to decide on a hurling league structure for 2014 and beyond. What is certain is not everyone will come away happy.

Dublin have declared they will be throwing their weight behind one of the original proposals for an eight-team Division One, and six-team Division Two (effectively affording Cork and Limerick a free pass into the top flight) – which caused major objections from the likes of Wexford and Carlow, and actually forced Central Council to defer the debate at last month’s meeting.

Another 12-team proposal was presented by Michael Burns, a member of the fixtures planning committee, which effectively split the top division into 12 teams, or two sections of six teams each.

Since then, and after strong objections to their exclusion, Carlow and Westmeath have added yet another proposal – a “Super-14” league, consisting of equal-standard groups of eight and six, or two groups of seven, albeit graded.

"Dublin stand where we always stood, on the eight and six," said Dublin county board chairman Andy Kettle. "We have discussed this at quite an in depth level, and we feel it is the best for hurling, and the promotion of hurling."

Imprimatur
"The crossover, that was presented by Michael Burns, could go the appeal route, because there is nothing in the Official Guide that gives the imprimatur to a relegation with a crossover. And the Carlow/Westmeath proposal of seven teams in two equal sections, to our mind, would lead to some very uneven games. Nobody likes going out and getting beaten week-in, week-out."

Kettle admitted there will be no clear outcome, at least one that will satisfy all: “But the GAA is a democratic association, people will put their points forward, but whatever format comes out of it, it has to come out of it this weekend.

“From a Dublin point of view, our CCC are awaiting to sit down and get our local games programme into shape for next year. Without the matrix of football and hurling at intercounty level it’s an impossible task.”

Kettle, who was speaking at the official launch of Dublin's new sponsorship deal with AIG, worth an estimated €4 million over the next five years, also rejected any accusation of Dublin's wealth being a deciding factor in their success, and rejected the suggestion from GAA president Liam O'Neill that Dublin might need to share their wealth around.

Strategic plan
"In our strategic plan, The Blue Wave, we have suggested, and we are looking for and working towards, Dublin being recognised as a province from a financial point of view.

“Dublin is a big area, it has a huge playing population and it takes a lot of money to run the organisation in Dublin. It would certainly be a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

“I would be worried about the message it (Liam O’Neill) sends out, although I wouldn’t be worried about it.

“I don’t think there is any way that you would see collective funding. You would then have to take something off Cork in Munster and put that into a central pot, take something off Galway in Connacht, etc.

“It’s not an unfair advantage. The basic ethos of the Association is to get young people playing our games. Regardless of what county you are in, only a small percentage of people come through at intercounty level.

“The big drive has to be at club level. We have 92 clubs and about 70 per cent of those are dual clubs. We have something like 12,000 juvenile games, a little over 4,500 adult games.

“It takes a lot of work, a lot of organisation. We want to expand that. There are some black spots in Dublin, not so much in county Dublin, but certainly in city Dublin.”