Champions League/World Cup structure for Football AI

[Rossfan]

One point in favour of a round robin type system is that Co Boards would know that 3 County games were set in stone and would enable them to plan a better Club Championship schedule.
With K.O system they simply have to write off all the possible weekends that County MIGHT be playing in.
If a R.R system ever came in they should play the  games 3 weeks apart to allow time for Club Championship games to take place. Also 3 weeks between the knock out stages which would allow even a team reaching the AI Final to have their Club competitions at Final stage too.
However as that won't ,if ever, happen for quite some time how about :-
A player can only play one level of Inter Co in a calendar year( Minor/U21 oe Adult. That would allow all the Inter Co Championships to be run simultaneously.
No Minor be allowed to play Club adult. The most annoying thing in the world is adult club games held up because young Kelly is no 29 on the Co Minor panel and we wont play without him etc.

[Sionnach]

I agree, a big day out in Croke Park can mean a hell of a lot of some counties and Limerick do have a tough route, but a new structure doesn't mean they'll get their day. 

Nor should it, but why should some counties be forever forced to face a harder/easier route than others, why should Mayo and Galway only have to be one of the 2 best teams out of 5 to get to the business end of the championship while your own county have to be one of the two best out of 12?

And once again, the provincial is becoming uninteresting now with the back-door. However the National League was always uninteresting even though id go to a lot of the games to see how teams are getting on (but thats really all it has to offer). So why not play the provincial in its place? That way you've two competitive, exciting tournaments and the important provincial tradition is kept.

Provinicial championships would then become as meaningless as the league  is now, so no you wouldn't have 2 competitive exciting torunaments or the provincial tradition being kept.

[Irenses]

Provinicial championships would then become as meaningless as the league  is now, so no you wouldn't have 2 competitive exciting torunaments or the provincial tradition being kept.
[/quote]

Local rivalries I think will always keep provincial championships interesting. I cant see a day where games such as Dublin/Meath will ever be completely meaningless. Plus if you were to use it to decide seeding's for a champions league style AI then I could defiantly see both completions being competitive.

[Mike Sheehy]

That is probably the main reason why i wud bring this system in. Kerry and Cork are almost always automatically a game away from the quarter finals. Any fair competition should be completely randomized. That way everyone gets a fair honest crack at it.

Hang on, I thought reaching a quarter final via a provincal win was considered a disadvantage these days.....  or does that just apply to everybody else except Kerry 

[armaghniac]

Hang on, I thought reaching a quarter final via a provincal win was considered a disadvantage these days.....  or does that just apply to everybody else except Kerry.

No it applies to Cork as well.

[The Forfeit Point]

One point in favour of a round robin type system is that Co Boards would know that 3 County games were set in stone and would enable them to plan a better Club Championship schedule.
With K.O system they simply have to write off all the possible weekends that County MIGHT be playing in.
If a R.R system ever came in they should play the  games 3 weeks apart to allow time for Club Championship games to take place. Also 3 weeks between the knock out stages which would allow even a team reaching the AI Final to have their Club competitions at Final stage too.
However as that won't ,if ever, happen for quite some time how about :-
A player can only play one level of Inter Co in a calendar year( Minor/U21 oe Adult. That would allow all the Inter Co Championships to be run simultaneously.
No Minor be allowed to play Club adult. The most annoying thing in the world is adult club games held up because young Kelly is no 29 on the Co Minor panel and we wont play without him etc.

are you f**king serious? 

[Sionnach]

Provinicial championships would then become as meaningless as the league  is now, so no you wouldn't have 2 competitive exciting torunaments or the provincial tradition being kept.

Local rivalries I think will always keep provincial championships interesting. I cant see a day where games such as Dublin/Meath will ever be completely meaningless. Plus if you were to use it to decide seeding's for a champions league style AI then I could defiantly see both completions being competitive.
[/quote]

Local rivalry on its own is not going to be enough to prevent significant reduction in the interest of a game if it has no bearing on the All-Ireland so you would need the incentive. That's evident from league games. We already have complaints about the provinicials being devalued and taken less seriously with the back door, let alone a system where the winners have no more advantage for the All-Ireland than a side knocked out in the preliminary round. As regards the seeding system, how would it work with the different numbers of teams in each province and some Munster and Connacht teams having automatic spots in the semi-finals?

[armaghniac]

The Connacht and Munster championships should be grouped in some way, with only one winner joining the Ulster and Leinster champions at a particular level.

[thejuice]

Might as well throw it in here too,

People have suggested world cup and champions league formats which have merit, but I'd like to throw in another proposition. Mine would be loosely based on the American football NFL format. Now I know some people will roll their eyes as they don't like NFL or Yanks but that doesn't warrent the dismissal of the idea.

Have 8 divisions of 4 neighbouring teams. They play each other once as well as 3 non-divisional opponents which will be chosen from an open draw. So that will foster neighbouring rivalry and also throw in a freshness to it of 3 potentially 'new' opponents.

And the 8 teams that top their division go on to the QTR finals. Tie breakers can be decided by winning record against divisional opponents. Don't think it would work too bad.

[mountainboii]

Might as well throw it in here too,

People have suggested world cup and champions league formats which have merit, but I'd like to throw in another proposition. Mine would be loosely based on the American football NFL format. Now I know some people will roll their eyes as they don't like NFL or Yanks but that doesn't warrent the dismissal of the idea.

Have 8 divisions of 4 neighbouring teams. They play each other once as well as 3 non-divisional opponents which will be chosen from an open draw. So that will foster neighbouring rivalry and also throw in a freshness to it of 3 potentially 'new' opponents.

And the 8 teams that top their division go on to the QTR finals. Tie breakers can be decided by winning record against divisional opponents. Don't think it would work too bad.

No harm, but thats the worst idea yet. You'd be left with completely unbalanced 'divisions'. I can see one with Wexford, Waterford, Carlow and Wicklow and then another with Tyrone, Donegal, Derry and Fermanagh.

The main drive for change is the fact that some people want to get away completely from inequalities of geographical grouping.

[thejuice]

Well yes that is true. But at the same time the local competitiveness might be the thing that spurs them on.

We really cant get away from the fact that some teams and regions are just poor at the moment and barring positive discrimination what else can we do.

In this system we would be offering them 6 competitive games,  each division could have a trophy, so something to win, yearly bragging rights and a better shot at getting to the later stages of the competition.

Weak teams getting a tanking is inevitable, I dont know what else we can do for them.

[Sionnach]

The Connacht and Munster championships should be grouped in some way, with only one winner joining the Ulster and Leinster champions at a particular level.

How about 3 proviinical ch'ships (Ulster, Leinster and Connacht / Munster)? The 8 top teams from the league in each of the 3 play in the provincial championships whiie the remainder contest the Tommy Murphy in a format that gives each Murphy team 2 games. Murphy champions and sides knocked out of the provincial  play to join the provincial champions in he semis.

Home advantages (for all games other than finals and All-Ireland quarters / semis) to go to the side that finished higher in the league, except that you have to go away if facing a team more than 1 division below you.

It could be played off reasonably quickly with this sample schedule (one or two rest periods being thrown in if necessary for a break, club games and hurling). Up to the All-Ireland series, which would include only 5 teams, there would only be 7 weekends on which you could possibly be playing even with replays allowed for the provincial semis and finals.

Week 1 Provincial QFs
Week 2 Provincial Semis. Also Rd 1 of Qualifier Cup involving the 12 first week losers.
Wk 3 Qualifier Rd 2: = the 6 1st Rd Qualifier winners plus the 6 Provincial SF losers.
Wk 4 Qualifier Round 3 = the 6 2nd Round Qualifier winners.
Wk 5 Qualifier Cup semi-finals = the 3 3rd Round winners plus Murphy champs.
Wk 6 Qualifier Cup final.
Wik 7 Quualiifier Cup champions plus the 3 provincial runners-up (the provincial finals having been played in wks 4 or 5)
Wk 8 All-Ireland Quarter-Final = the 2 winners from Wk 7
The winnners of the single quarter-final go forward to the semis with the 3 provinciial champions

So the provincial championships wiould be less devalued and more interesting. The provincial losers still have a back door but it's much tougher to get back to the same stage as the proviincial champions.  The weaker teams have more of a chance for competitive games but still have a guaranteed 2 games and a shot at the All-Ireland. Most teams have something they can have a realistic crack at whether provincial championship, Murphy Cup or Qualifier Cup (whatever name it woluld be given)  The fixture problems are alleviated (especially if you combine this with some of the club-level rules others have suggested)v about as much as they're going to be without adopting a league format.

[Rossfan]

The Connacht and Munster championships should be grouped in some way, with only one winner joining the Ulster and Leinster champions at a particular level.

How about 3 proviinical ch'ships (Ulster, Leinster and Connacht / Munster)?

FCUK OFF with this crap. 
It's not too long ago that Ulster couldnt put out any decent team while Leinster is at a pretty low level the last few years.
I didnt read the rest of your post so I dont know how good or bad the rest of you r ides were.

[Sionnach]

The Connacht and Munster championships should be grouped in some way, with only one winner joining the Ulster and Leinster champions at a particular level.

How about 3 proviinical ch'ships (Ulster, Leinster and Connacht / Munster)?

FCUK OFF with this crap. 
It's not too long ago that Ulster couldnt put out any decent team while Leinster is at a pretty low level the last few years.
I didnt read the rest of your post so I dont know how good or bad the rest of you r ides were.

And what have each of Connacht and Munster had in living memory? 2 consisently good teams and that's it in most years. But it's not just because of the quality of sides, as you might realise if you read the rest. They have too few teams and are utterly  dominated by duopolies. 1992, 17 yearrs ago, was the ONLY YEAR Kerry / Cork didn' win Munster since 1935! Connacht is not quite as bad mainly thanks to Roscommon (the others have 5 titles between them in the entire history of the GAA) but the Rossies still have only the two All-Irelands from the 1940s, and Galway and Mayo have the vast majority of the Connacht wins. The combination suggested would be far more ineresting, ensure everyone starts at the same time and allow a much more sensible and interesting overall championship structure as outlined above.

[GalwayBayBoy]

Putting Kerry, Cork, Galway and Mayo in one province?

Would make Leinster in particular look like a walk in the park.