The GAA find themselves in a difficult position when it comes to readjusting the current inter-county calendar.
It is clear that some changes are needed, especially in the Gaelic football edition. The championship season has been severely condensed in recent years, and with extra games added since the introduction of the All-Ireland group stage, rest time for players has been reduced by quite a bit.
Some have suggested that moving the All-Ireland finals from their current July slots to later in the year would help, but that presents its own set of problems.
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Jarlath Burns speaks about idea of extending inter-county GAA calendar
For far too long, club players were overlooked when it came to organising the GAA calendar. That was the reason that the split-season was introduced in the first place, with some seemingly overlooking that aspect when discussing the current inter-county fixture list.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, GAA President Jarlath Burns said that any changes to the calendar were difficult to make if the goal was also to be fair to club players.
If you look at the genuine dual counties, like Cork and like Galway and Tipperary and Dublin … they need at least 14 weeks to run off their club championships.
So if you can find 14 weeks in a year to allow a county to run off its club championship, well then, it’s a possibility. But I don’t honestly know how we can do that.
For years and years, the GAA faced criticism that we were not in touch with the grassroots. The clubs were really suffering as a result of the inter-county championships. This is what it looks like whenever you prioritise clubs – or give clubs equal billing...
We don’t really have a split season because I know in most counties … in my own county, Armagh ... we’ve played 11 league matches so far. So it’s going on without the county players...
All club players want is certainty that the date a game is fixed [for], it will be played. This is what we’ve given them but all these things come with consequences.
Removing some fixture from the inter-county calendar, such as All-Ireland preliminary quarter-finals, would seem like a more simple fix than extending the championship season.
In any case, the GAA must have club players at the forefront of their minds during any decision making process.
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