Connacht secretary condemns ‘disgusting’ responses to provincial draw

Connacht secretary John Prenty has condemned as “disgusting” some of the responses to the province’s football championship draw, which ensured that a Division Four county, Leitrim (or New York) or Sligo, would qualify for the final and by extension, this year’s Sam Maguire.

The knock-on effect means that at least one of the teams promoted from Division Three – who might otherwise have competed with the top 16 – will remain in the Tier 2 Tailteann Cup. Prenty takes issue with the commentary around this.

“The media and social media commentary immediately after the draw was disgusting. It tried to portray Sligo, London, Leitrim and New York as somehow ‘lesser beings’ with no right to qualify for the Sam Maguire.

“Well they have every right to play in an All-Ireland series and in 2023 one of them will qualify for it on merit. One of the advantages of the luck of the draw is that anything can happen. On this occasion it did and I wish them every success this summer.”

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The comments are contained in his annual report to the Connacht convention, which takes place next Monday evening in Bekan.

He went on endorse the first running of the new, split season, which concluded with All-Ireland finals in July, making way for the club season exclusively to start in August.

“Why did we take so long?” he asks of the decision, which he says brought fixtures and certainty to players and spectators alike, “and for the majority of counties there has been record gate receipts from their club championships”.

Prenty also tackled the argument that the association is losing out on big promotional opportunities by narrowing the window of its elite competitions.

“Many commentators have commented on the fact that the GAA has lost a big promotional tool by having the All-Ireland finals finished in July. I would argue that we now have two big promotional tools available to us: one for first six months of intercounty season and the other for the second six months of the club season.

“Club games are as important to the association as the intercounty game. From a promotional point of view, while the national media, in the main, has traditionally shied away from the early rounds of club championships the local media has been very supportive of the ‘split season’ games.

“There have been several weeks when local newspapers have carried up to 15 pages of reports of club championship games in a county. This is gaining a new and most important promotional tool for our association, at the most important level grassroots level.”

He addresses the issue of discipline and the associated “Respect” initiative, describing the situation as “challenging” in 2022. Part of this is attributed to “confusion” around procedures.

“There is also confusion amongst some referees on how the disciplinary process works. The Council will organise a seminar early in the new year for county CCC members, county hearings committee members and county referee administrators in order to bring definite clarity to the roles and responsibility of each group.

“The past year has seen some unsavoury incidents whereby some referees and, indeed, players and officials have been abused at our games. The association widely promotes its ‘Give Respect Get Respect’ initiative but we must remember that respect is a two-way street.

“All of us must respect our referees, our players, our members and our administrators at all levels and all members of the association must respect each other. Hopefully, 2023 will be the season whereby all of our members, our disciplinary process and our rule book will be respected.”