Ewan McKenna is bang on the button!
The fact that for every €2.63 spent on youth development in Mayo from central funds, Dublin gets €11.73 should be cause enough for unease. This massive imbalance of resources cannot be sustained long term. Galway fares out even worse than Mayo. Indeed all along the western seaboard the counties that need the most receive the least.
For me, McKenna did not go far enough.
The advantages of having superclubs so big that they have more juvenile players than, Roscommon, Sligo, Fermanagh, Leitrim or Cavan ( and that was more than 20 years ago) are obvious enough.
But there are massive downsides also and eventually it will be become apparent to all, bar the circle-the-wagon school of logic, that what the CC is doing will be counter productive.
For example, a large club that will have no difficulty in attracting u8s or 9s will have to let the majority of them go by the time they are old enough to player minor.
There many be 8 or 9 grades of competition at younger levels but the number decreases as youngsters move up through the age levels.
ASFAIK, there are only two grades at minor level; u18A and u8B. (I am not aware of any u18c grade but I may well be wrong on that.
So, the GAA/Dublin County Board policy is to attract kids at an early age, provide them with the best facilities and coaching available and then turf them out on a gradual basis as they get older.
I think it’s a no-brainer to say that the earlier a juvenile is forced to drop out of GAA activities, the less likely he is to retain an attachment with club he had been involved with.
If, say, there were four medium-sized clubs in an area, there could be at least four times as many u18s engaged in competitive football as there would be in a single super sized one.
Put anyway you like, whatever the present policy of youth development may be, it benefits nobody.