GAA President Jarlath Burns says that the All-Ireland football and hurling finals could make a return to September, but only if the club championships across the different counties unite in the same structural format.
Speaking on the GAAGO’s new ‘Ratified’ series, hosted by Marc Ó Sé, Michael Murphy, Aaron Kernan and Paddy Andrews, Burns illustrated how the different club championship formats impact the county calendar.
The All-Ireland finals haven’t been played in September since 2017 (with the exception of 2021’s knockout championship) while both the football and hurling finales are set to take place in July this year. Burns suggests that a return to a September date could happen, which would effectively end the split season.
“There is a way of achieving that (more space in inter-county calendar) going right back to September with the two finals,” said the former Armagh midfielder.
“The difficulty with it is the people who are going to have to compromise are counties with their own (club) championships. That’s the difficulty is, I think we sort of missed the point as to what the problem was.
“The problem is that, if you’re organising the Premier League fixtures, it’s very simple, all you have to look out for is the UEFA and FIFA fixtures.
30 March 2024; Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael Jarlath Burns during the Allianz Football League Division 4 final match between Laois and Leitrim at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
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“But if you’re organising the GAA’s master fixtures plan, you have to bump into is 32 fixture making bodies, the Higher Education and multiply that all by two because you have hurling and football.
“Then within that you have seven or eight different iterations of championships. For example, we (Armagh) have groups of four, nobody can explain how you (Ó’Sé) do it in Kerry, it’s easier to learn Chinese,” laughed Burns.
“In your (Murphy, Donegal) county, it’s league format now and I think in Tyrone it’s straight knockout, in Wexford, I think they play six games. It is totally ridiculous to think we can organise a master fixtures plan around that.
“So, what my thinking on this is that let’s say if we went to the old way where we have All-Ireland finals back whenever they were. What you say is, ‘There’s the master fixtures plan, this will work if every county operates its league and championship on this format’.
“Let’s say you have groups of eight (in the league) and then it becomes groups of four (four championship), top and bottom, more or less the way Armagh do it and the way most counties do it.
“Now we’re not saying you have to do it that way, but if you don’t you do it this way, you do so at your own risk. I think that would be a good compromise to say to the counties we can work the master fixture schedule around this iteration of club organisation.
30 July 2023; Dublin captain James McCarthy lifts the Sam Maguire Cup after his side's victory in the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship final match between Dublin and Kerry at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
“If you do it this way, there’s where you play all your games, there’s when you’ll have your county players, there’s when you have your preparation, build it all in. But if you want to continue the old way that you have, don’t come running to us.”
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Burns, who replaced Larry McCarthy as president of the association this year, highlighted the difficulties with having the All-Ireland finals played in July, like they have been in the last two seasons.
“You might this this is a small thing but it’s not really,” continued the Silverbridge clubman. “In the middle of July, it’s impossible for counties, let’s say if Kerry come up here, to get accommodation in Dublin.
“I know the Kerry Group look after all of Kerry’s expenses and they’re very lucky that they have them to do so, but it’s virtually impossible for counties outside of Ulster to get accommodation the weekend of the All-Ireland final in the last week of July.
“All of these things, it’s not perfect, it’s working at the moment at a particular level. Club players love it (the split season) but let’s not tie ourselves to that if we are going to innovate, let’s think of where we can innovate.”
