Smallest GAA congress motions list in 20 years contains little of major importance

The GAA released its motions list on Thursday to little fanfare and without a briefing from Croke Park, just a page of one-line explanations. If there ever was a year to give such a quiet send-off to the agenda for discussion at annual congress, which takes place in Newry the weekend after next, it was probably this one.

There are few items of significant import on the clár, which is actually also the smallest in 20 years. That congress in Belfast did however feature an enormous closing motion on disciplinary rules and procedures, which totalled 16 subsections, each requiring a separate vote.

This year’s contains 26 – six more than in 2003 and about half the number at an average congress in the interim – but few of any obvious importance.

In keeping with recent years, there is a further attempt to dismantle the protective window, which regulates players lining out for both their senior and under-20 county teams.

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The prohibition on this taking place was diluted last year when Wexford successfully argued for a seven-day window to protect under-20s instead of outright prohibition. Even that proved controversial with under-20 players denouncing the restrictions on their lining out for both teams.

A Cork motion proposes to reduce this even further to a 60-hour or two-and-a-half-day window. Croke Park officials are concerned that the motion will attract the 60 per cent support necessary to pass.

Motion 5, from Cork GAA, proposes this and also requires the committee in charge of making fixtures to make allowance to facilitate such scheduling.

Another proposal to reverse a recent reform comes from Tempo Maguires and Fermanagh. Motion 8 aims to reunite the All-Ireland minor finals with the senior equivalent at Croke Park, a double bill that hasn’t happened since 2019. The purpose of the decoupling was to prevent the exposure of young players – minor is for the past seven years an under-17 grade – to the big day in Croke Park and also to free them up for club activity by not extending the minor championship by three weeks.

Minor finals have been successfully held in Armagh and Kilkenny since the split was introduced.

Reducing All-Ireland Sunday to one match has had knock-on effects in that the crowd turns up later than ideal and the attendance for the silver jubilee team has become unimpressively small.

Neither of these are considered by proponents of the new status quo as sufficient reason to roll back the change.

In motion 19, the Standing Committee on the Playing Rules propose that the black card in hurling to discourage cynical fouling, which stops a player with a goalscoring opportunity, be made permanent after a trial period and extended to all intercounty competitions from minor up. The same extension is proposed for the black card in football.

Other motions down for discussion include one from Gortin St Patrick’s and Tyrone, which looks to expand from five to 10 years the ‘decontamination period’ before a county officer who has served five years can run again for office.

On a similar theme, Shannon Gaels in Cavan propose that the five-year period also be applied to provincial officers.

Motions often cover topics that have been of relevance to a county in the preceding 12 months. One such, motion 10, comes from Down and seeks to address the anomaly that allowed Kilcoo challenge the appointment of Paul Faloon to referee the county final.

These challenges are forbidden in the current rule book but only the CCCC and provincial CCCs are explicitly mentioned. Down propose that the same prohibition apply to county competition control committees.

Pearse Óg in Armagh propose that abusive language towards a referee be upgraded from a Category III to Category IV infraction – effectively doubling the punishment to a two-match suspension.

Motions 22 and 23 are from Central Council and propose to resolve the anomaly around the differing impact of various cards in a match that goes to extra time.

The first motion seeks to carry all cards issued in normal time into extra time. The second proposes a clarification that extra time is not a new game, a long running – if baffling – principle enshrined in the regulations.

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