The GAA will announce on Tuesday morning its decision on acceptance of the revised version of the playing rules, as finalised by the Football Review Committee last week.
Central Council met on Monday night to sign off on the Benefits Realisation Framework document, which lays out amended rules for the future.
Votes were cast but a decision was taken not to announce the outcome until Tuesday morning. All of the proposals are expected to be passed.
Issues of consequence were expected to include the starting date for implementation and the introduction of the public clock and hooter.
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Concerns had been expressed that were the new rules to be introduced for the last two weekends of the national league, counties could mount challenges to being relegated or denied promotion on scoring difference, as the amended rules make it harder to score with their provision for a minimum of four at the back – as opposed to three. Consequently, it could be harder to score on the last two weekends with counties’ scoring difference being affected as a result.
The hooter, which sounds at the end of the match, also triggered scepticism at official levels as a result of the cost of installation and maintenance – estimated at €250,000.
It was also the recommendation, which has triggered the most opposition, or at least the lowest approval rating. At last November’s special congress in Croke Park, the concept of the hooter was the only proposal to receive less than 85 per cent of the vote – being approved by 74-26 per cent.
To date, it has been used at Division 1 grounds only for the first two rounds and since then has been extended to Division 2.
There had been questions as to whether it was wise to incur the expenditure when the proposal might not be permanently adopted at next October’s special congress, which will decide if the new rules are to be confirmed in the Official Guide.
The FRC last week also proposed that recommendations from the CCCC on the ending of matches be adopted so that when the hooter sounds at the conclusion of a match the ball must go dead, or frees, penalties and 45s already awarded must be taken before the final whistle is sounded.
One slightly controversial measure that had attracted a lot of attention in the past couple of weeks is the 20-second limit guideline on kick-outs and frees, which had been criticised as excessively punitive. The FRC have relaxed this to 30 seconds.
Speaking on the Irish Examiner’s football podcast, former Mayo manager and FRC member James Horan said the guideline would be extended to 30 seconds.
“I think 20 seconds, we discussed it before, 20 seconds can be too tight,” he told the podcast, “and we saw some evidence of that.”
He added: “As we said, we all reflected and the proposal is that it goes to 30 seconds. I think that gives everyone sufficient time regardless of circumstances to get a kick-out away and for the ref to use that if required. It is not that they have to have it within 30 seconds, it is a guideline for the ref.”
Interestingly, according to data from the GAA’s Games Intelligence Unit on round five of the league, kick-outs for the first time this league dropped to less than 20 seconds in duration, 19.5.
Meanwhile, Leinster Council voted on Monday night to lower the cost of admission to provincial first round championship matches to €15, a reduction of €10. A proposal to switch the province’s football semi-finals out of Croke Park, which had been speculated on, was not raised at the meeting.
