Championship structures - the never ending saga?

[Keane]

Is squeezing a few extra high profile games out of the calendar something most people don't want, or...?

[OgraAnDun]

Is squeezing a few extra high profile games out of the calendar something most people don't want, or...?

Not if it strips the knock out element from the championship and takes away the great shocks victories/losses that people complain are dying out of today's game.

[AZOffaly]

2016 Worked Example of this...

Qualifier Round 1 - 16 non-provincial semi finalists

New York, London, Leitrim, Wicklow, Carlow, Longford, Wexford, Laois, Offaly, Louth, Limerick, Waterford, Antrim, Derry, Armagh, Down and Fermanagh (actually 17 teams, but I presume New York would be out).

So at random you could have London v Wicklow, LEitrim v Carlow, Longford v Laois, Wexford v Offaly, Louth v Waterford, Limerick v Antrim, Derry v Down, Armagh v Fermanagh.


Qualifier Round 2 - Wicklow, Leitrim, Laois, Offaly, Louth, Antrim, Derry, Fermanagh versus Monaghan, Cavan, Cork, Clare, Kildare, Meath, Mayo Sligo.

So let's say Wicklow v Monaghan, Leitrim v Cavan, Laois v Cork, Offaly v Clare, Louth v Kildare, Antrim v Meath, Derry v Mayo, Fermanagh v Sligo.


Qualifier Round 3 - Open Draw between (say) Monaghan, Cavan, Cork, Clare, Kildare, Meath, Mayo, Fermanagh
again at random - Monaghan v Fermanagh, Cavan v MAyo, Cork v Meath, Clare v Kildare

Qualifier Round 4 - Monaghan, Mayo, Cork, Clare versus Westmeath, Tipperary, Roscommon, Donegal

So maybe Monaghan v Roscommon, Mayo v Donegal, Cork v Tipperary, Clare v Westmeath

And then the quarter finals
Dublin
Kerry
Monaghan
Mayo


Tyrone
Galway
Tipperary
Clare


It's not bad. Still potential for a few mismatches early on, but as long as you keep all 32 eligible for Sam (which I would like, and so do the players) then I suppose that will always happen.

[yellowcard]

Is that it? Or how long did it take to come up with this brainchild idea.
There are committee's set up to research into these ideas and that is the best they could put forward. How about starting by ripping up the outdated pre-historic imbalanced provincial structures. This only serves to create a super 5/6 counties who will benefit and get stronger, whilst the weak/mid tier counties will continue to struggle to convince players it is worth their while playing county football. Kerry/Cork/Dublin/Mayo/Galway/Tyrone/Donegal will probably be delighted with this new proposal as they will be in the last 8 most seasons. Other counties will be left to flounder.

[ha ha derry]

Hot on the heels of the gpa funding increase we have extra games added to an already congested schedule to pay for it. Paving the way for semi professional structure. Clubs screwed even more. The weaker counties pay more in expenses for less chance of success. Gone will be the chance of a shock result for weaker counties. Maybe I'm wrong 😉

[seafoid]

The group stage is an interesting idea.

[blewuporstuffed]

I cant see how this proposal does anything but make the club situation worse.
it also doesnt adress the imbalance between league & championship.
We dont need extra championship games IMO, we need to make the league more important and make taht more of a feature of the season.

[yellowcard]

The 2 single biggest benificiaries are Kerry and Dublin. It's like giving Barcelona and Real Madrid a bye into the quarter finals of the CL every year. Remove the historical boundaries and create a championship that is fair to ALL counties not the select big few who benefit purely because of geographical boundaries.

[blewuporstuffed]

The 2 single biggest benificiaries are Kerry and Dublin. It's like giving Barcelona and Real Madrid a bye into the quarter finals of the CL every year. Remove the historical boundaries and create a championship that is fair to ALL counties not the select big few who benefit purely because of geographical boundaries.

They pretty much have that already

[yellowcard]

The 2 single biggest benificiaries are Kerry and Dublin. It's like giving Barcelona and Real Madrid a bye into the quarter finals of the CL every year. Remove the historical boundaries and create a championship that is fair to ALL counties not the select big few who benefit purely because of geographical boundaries.

They pretty much have that already

Yes I agree, but that's the point. It has done absolutely nothing to address the unfairness that already exists.

[David McKeown]

From reading these forums it seems the issues with the current system are:

1. Not enough time for club games
2. Too easy for some of the bigger teams to make quarter finals. (Unbalanced structures)
3. Provincial stages have little impact
4. League of little relevance
5. Uncompetitive games
6. Little chance of a shock
7. Dwindling attendances
8. Growing disparity between the bigger and smaller counties.
9. 6 day turnaround

I'm sure there are others

For me the new proposal addresses none of those issues, I don't have a problem with group stages but not at that stage. It serves little practical benefit.

[twohands!!!]

The 2 single biggest benificiaries are Kerry and Dublin. It's like giving Barcelona and Real Madrid a bye into the quarter finals of the CL every year. Remove the historical boundaries and create a championship that is fair to ALL counties not the select big few who benefit purely because of geographical boundaries.

Yup - it means that the likelihood of a bottom or middle ranking club pulling off an upset on the day would be almost completely out the window.

The Division 1 teams counties will vote for this and everyone else will vote against it.

For the mid-ranking footballing counties it would be the equivalent of cutting their own throats, as the odds of getting to a semi-final through the group stage would be far far less than the current quarter-final system.

This year Tipp had to beat Galway to get to a semi-final. Under the new system it would be a group with Galway, Mayo and Tyrone [making the assumption that the A and B process was still in effect] Imagine what sort of a kick in the teeth it would be for the Tipp lads if they knew they still had 2 games against Mayo and Tyrone to play?

On the other side it would be a group of Clare, Donegal, Dublin and Kerry. Imagine what sort of state Clare football would be in in a month, if they had 2 more game to play against Donegal and Dublin after the 11 point tanking by Kerry?

Can't see this having a hope of getting approved.

[JimStynes]

What other alternatives are there?

[Rossfan]

Looks like HQ only interested in the successful teams and generating more €s.
If anything round robins should be for the teams knocked out early so they could get more games and improve themselves.
At present Counties can't make club Championship fixtures for July because they might be playing a string of Qualifiers.
Then they get ko'd in lateJune so club and county have no activity.
At least if they had 3 group games set in stone.....

[Keyser soze]

Any proposal that includes round robin group stages will prove to be a complete farce. Can't believe this nonsense ever seen the light of day.