Although the Gaelic Players Association emphasise that the blueprint for change in the GAA football championship, which has emerged online, is merely a draft proposal for discussion amongst intercounty players, the ideas are both detailed and radical.
They have been drawn up just as the GAA’s Central Council is due to meet next week to consider similar proposals from counties with a view to discussing the best way forward for the championship.
No decision will be taken until later in the year.
Headline proposals from the GPA document include the abolition of pre-season tournaments (McKenna Cup, O'Byrne Cup, etc) in January, the conclusion of the national league by the end of March and the running-off of provincial championships as stand-alone competitions throughout the month of April and with no connection to the All-Ireland series.
The championship would then be run over the summer months, coming to a conclusion in early September and allowing club activities to run from July to October as well as during breaks in the earlier timetables in April and May.
Champions League
The All-Ireland format favoured is the much-referred to Champions League model: eight groups of four counties, playing on a round-robin basis and divided into two pools in order to allow televising of fixtures on alternate weekends.
These groups would be drawn at random from each of the four divisions of the national league so that a county from each would make up each group.
One of the aspects that the GPA is keen to emphasise is the obligation for top-seeded (Division One) counties to travel for their fixtures with the fourth-seeded (Division Four).
Home advantage in all other matches would be drawn.
The top counties in each of the eight groups would proceed to the last 16 whereas the second- and third-places teams would play off to see who completed the round of 16 draw. Bottom counties would take no further part.
Played off
The remainder of the schedule is much like the present except that the rounds would be played off more quickly with All-Ireland quarter-finals at the end of July, semi-finals in mid-August and final on the first Sunday in September.
Presumably this would be seen as a way of condensing the hurling calendar as well and bringing forward the closing rounds of that.
Whereas a good deal of thought has evidently gone into the ideas, which were published on Thursday afternoon on the42.ie, the major stumbling blocks in terms of debate may well be the stripping of status from the provincial championships and the introduction of the round-robin format.
Experience suggests that the public have limited patience with round-robin matches, especially in seeded groups where there may – depending on the draw – emerge a level of predictability.
This was the experience when the GAA experimented with the format in the All-Ireland qualifiers of 2005 and 2006.
