Submit Your Alternative Championship Structure

[Syferus]

33 counties.

3x11 county competitions running concurrently. Call it the Gold (Sam Maguire) Silver and Bronze cups.

Think counties would kick up stink if they didn't have the opportunity to win the All Ireland. I think they probably should be too. In hurling you have the Liam McCarthy, Christy Ring and Nicky Rackard but that is because the gulf in standards is huge. Kilkenny playing Donegal in hurling would be a ridiculous fixture

Football does not have the same massive gulf in standards.

Think of some games from recent years

Sligo should have beaten Kerry in 2009
Fermanagh beat Armagh and Cork in 2004
Louth drew with Tyrone in 2006, could well have won.
Wicklow beat Down in 2009, Down All Ireland finalists 2010

Are you kidding me?

Ask Roscommon, Leitrim, Carlow, Louth, Waterford, Offaly

You need better bait!

[stew]

Would like to start a thread discussing alternatives to the current structure of the All Ireland Senior Football Championship.

The championship as it stands has the momentum of a freight train. A stationary freight train, that is.

So many anomalies

- Gaps of 3-5 weeks between matches. What other sport would allow such gaps between matches at the 'business end ' of the season?
- A pre- season that lasts much longer than the competitive season. I would argue that the months of January- May are all pre-season as the McKenna/O'Byrne Cup etc and the League are all preparation gearing towards championship.  The majority of counties are out by August so it's effectively a two month competitive season
- Provincial structure giving certain counties an unfair advantage. Certain provinces competitive - Ulster, Leinster , others less so - Munster, Connacht . Too many mismatches
- Club game on hold during summer months because of unpredictability of fixtures
- Difficulty in marketing games as a result of so little action to market.

My proposal

Upper Tier

6 groups of 4 from the top 24 teams.

Each team to play other teams from group on a home and away basis. Six games for each team therefore.

Lower Tier

Two groups of four. Play each other twice on a home and away basis as above

Qualification

Top team in each of the six groups in the Upper tier qualifies automatically for quarter finals. Second team in each group in Upper tier, along with top team in each group in the Lower Tier qualifies to play two rounds of play-off matches to take up two remaining places in quarter finals. Quarter finals then proceed per current All Ireland series to final.

Two worst teams in the Upper Tier on league points get relegated and replaced by the top team in each group in the Lower Tier.

Start the championship earlier - mid April. Set in stone six dates for the group matches, say every two weekends from the second weekend in April to complete around the end of June.

Play the provincial championships as stand alone competitions in March and April.

Scrap the league and O'Byrne/McKenna Cups etc. and the whole notion of a five month pre-season lead in. If Premier league teams can have a three week pre-season to get ready why do inter county teams need a five month pre-season?

The system guarantees six championship games and at least three home championship games for each county but does away with the provincial structure within the championship. Don't think you can turn the championship into a modern competition along the lines of the Heineken Cup while still retaining the provincial championship.

Obviously there isn't a snowballs chance in hell of something as radical as this going through Congress but the time has come to give the fans and players what they want - more competitive matches in the All Ireland championship!

Is that too much to ask?

No! This is the best alternative to what we have now i have ever seen, this needs to be implemented.

Well done sir, great job altogether!!!!!

[catchandkick]

Thank you sir! (assuming you are not being sarcastic)

I really do think this is something the GAA has to move towards and I honestly think that if they did, it would transform the championship overnight.

Will it ever come to pass? Doubtful. If an incumbent GAA President wanted to leave a legacy, then this could be thir legacy.

Present championship, even with the backdoor, is a relic.

Can I be the first to start a 'Change the Gaelic Football Championship' campaign?

Off The Ball on Newstalk might take up the cause on my behalf. They did so for the 2023 Rugby World Cup idea.

Would give them something to talk about in relation to GAA, seeing as there is so little to talk about most of the time (lack of matches, coming back to my original point)

Yours frustratingly,

[Lazer]

I'm going to have to go against the grain here, I like the current structure, other than the unfairness due to the different sizes of the provinces, but there is really no way around that if you want to keep the provincials.

The format of the championship is such that any county can win it with a few good games - that should stay, its what makes the championship what it is!

[Lone Shark]

I think when attacking this, you have to start from the basis of what can, realistically, be implemented. You also have to understand what people want. So any system that either eliminates the provincial championships, or reduces them to a sideshow, with no bearing on the winner of the All Ireland, is doomed to failure. The provincial councils won't want it, and right now they are still a big deal - 80% of counties start the year with realistic aims of winning a provincial title, or reaching a final at the very least. Only 20% have a realistic chance of winning an All Ireland, and by that I mean anything under 20/1.

Also, we do want to get people in the gate, and local derbies matter. Matches like Derry vs Tyrone, Offaly vs Laois, Limerick vs Clare, Roscommon vs Leitrim, these are all about much more than who makes it through to the next round. On the other hand if you have Offaly vs Clare, Limerick vs Tyrone, Roscommon vs Derry, Leitrim vs Laois, it's only about progression - and when the All Ireland is an unrealistic goal, that doesn't mean much.

People might say that the qualifiers are like that now, but it's not comparing like with like. People enter the qualifiers in May/June, when they've already done 6-9 months of work. At that stage they may as well finish out. But who's going to train in November and December for a qualifier style tie?

I agree that the big gaps between games are a farce, and that the preseason competitions are a waste. So my system would be this.

Championship:

All backdoors are within the province. Every province comes up with it's own system to come up with a winner, who goes straight into the quarter finals, and two runners up, who go into the equivalent of what is now qualifier round 4. For example, Leinster, with 11 teams, might play three groups of 4, 4 and 3 teams. The top 3, 3 and 2 qualify for Leinster quarters, with home advantage guaranteed for the counties with the best group record, when they play in QF and SF games. This will keep counties honest throughout and avoid the risk of managers fielding weaker teams when they're already through. They would then play down to winners, with a 3rd/4th place playoff to get back in the race as the 2nd runner up. Connacht could do one three and one four team group to create semi finalists, Munster 2*3, Ulster maybe a 4 and a 5 group, with winners going straight into provincial semis and two quarters, 2nd vs 3rd.

Round robin provincial games are relatively important, they are local, and they get run off quickly, every week, starting in mid April. By the end of June you've the provincial finals all played, prelim quarters in early July, quarters in late July, semis early August, final late August.

National League

Same as now, except starting in mid January, running through to March.

O'Byrne/FBD/McKenna/McGrath

Play these alongside the league, on provincial lines, as "B" competitions, where managers run out their panellists. Minimum three games per county, played as double headers with league games where possible. These would be of much more interest, they wouldn't be played in the dead of winter, and club players could be invited in to make up the numbers on any given day. Squads would be a bit bigger, but the more condensed season would suit the county board, and right now managers chop and change their panel the whole time anyway.

Club

This to me is the biggest advantage - a distinct club season. All across the country, club championships are set to have a big launch on the bank holiday weekend in August. Unless their county reaches the last four of the All Ireland, the clubs will have August, September and October to themselves. Club leagues can be played throughout the summer, without county players. Not ideal, but at least it's games. A national marketing plan could be drawn up to get people out to support your clubs - you've just seen them play county, now this weekend, they're at a ground near you - that sort of thing. It would be easy done since you'd have 28 counties all getting underway the one weekend. Plus no more messing with club players wondering when they can book holidays, or going back training in November because there will be one championship match in April, followed by another in May and another in September. County players will have their season, club players will have theirs.

Disadvantages

They're nearly extinct anyway, but it will become all but impossible to play football and hurling together, so dual players will be really inconvenienced. That said, it's almost impossible accommodate them completely now, and you discommode a lot of others to do so.

Shorter season of big games, which the likes of Martin Breheny will report as a disaster. Giving over the shop window to soccer and all that. I personally couldn't care less - GAA is for the players, and if people want to watch, brilliant - but we shouldn't be crucifying players just to make sure there's a county game on TV the whole time.

Risk of dead rubber games - no matter what you do, there will be a risk of a group game somewhere where one team has no incentive to try. My thing about this is that if it's a provincial rivalry, that's less likely to happen. Anyway, I guarantee ye this weekend there will be at least one qualifier team who will be unbelievably bad, because they've no interest in the qualifiers. Players will have tuned out, emigrated, gone drinking or whatever.




That's my two cents anyway. And it kept me distracted from doing real work for another fifteen minutes....

[catchandkick]

I still find it hard to see how you create a modern competition while building the provincial championships into it.

If I populated my 6*4 Upper Tier and 2*4 Lower Tier idea with hypothetical groups, potential problems might become more apparent.

[Lone Shark]

I still find it hard to see how you create a modern competition while building the provincial championships into it.

If I populated my 6*4 Upper Tier and 2*4 Lower Tier idea with hypothetical groups, potential problems might become more apparent.

You're right in that it would be better without such restrictions - but we are where we are, and surely it's better to talk about changes that might happen, rather than ones that clearly never will?

[Rossfan]

This is a grand subject for the long Winter nights.
Is Eugene McGee's Committee looking at things like this or is it just playing rules ?

[thewobbler]

I still find it hard to see how you create a modern competition while building the provincial championships into it.

It's simple. You play the provincials before the full competition, then you define seedings for the latter competition based on performance in the former.

Personally I despise the communist-style thinking of so many GAA people, whereby they feel the need to artificially help out weaker teams. It's this nonsense that creates horrible concepts like the back door (which has killed off any chance of a weaker team ever winning an AI again) and the Tommy Murphy (the special Olympics of senior GAA).

I prefer a simple policy: if you want more games, win more games.

[Rossfan]

horrible concepts like the back door (which has killed off any chance of a weaker team ever winning an AI again)

When was the last "weaker team" to win the AI.
It's a Championship and the whole idea is that the best team wins and are called Champions.
All that's being discussed here is what sort of system you use along the way.
Remember 1991/2/3 when the 3 Top teams were in Ulster , yet only one of them could get to the last 4. at leats the "back door" has prevented that sort of nonsense and you usually get 6 or 7 of the top 8 in the Qtr finals and the best 4 now usually make the semis.
Anyway if you want a weaker team to win then you have to handicap the strong teams.

[thewobbler]

Rossfan, the 90s were a golden period for football. Eight different counties won Sam during that time.

I couldn't care how many great teams were in Ulster at that time. The team that turned up won. All the back door has done is remove the chance of this happening again. It's not a handicap to the stronger teams, it's a get out of jail free card. But it was passed with different intentions.