First thing's first, these changes apply only to the football championship. The changes suggested will eliminate the National football league while the provincial championship, while maintained, will not have any bearing on the All Ireland football championship. The provincial championship and the potential ramifications for that are discussed elsewhere in the blog.
The championship will be made up 4 groups of 8. Teams will be seeded 1-4. In each group there will be 2 seeds from each pool. To determine the seeds for the first year of the system, the final standings of previous years national league will be used.
So for the sake of this blog, we will take the current standings to determine the seeds taking into account that bottom 2 and top 2 in each group will advance and relegate where neccessary.
1st Seeds
Tyrone
Dublin
Kildare
Cork
Mayo
Donegal
Westmeath
Derry
2nd Seeds
Kerry
Down
Laois
Galway
Wexford
Louth
Fermanagh
Monaghan
3rd Seeds
Armagh
Longford
Cavan
Roscommon
Meath
Antrim
Tipperary
Limerick
4th Seeds
Sligo
Wicklow
Offaly
Clare
Leitrim
Waterford
Carlow
London
So potential groupings would be:
Group A
Donegal
Dublin
Kerry
Galway
Cavan
Antrim
Offaly
Wicklow
Group B
Cork
Westmeath
Laois
Wexford
Roscommon
Armagh
Leitrim
Clare
Group C
Kildare
Mayo
Down
Monaghan
Meath
Limerick
London
Waterford
Group D
Derry
Tyrone
Louth
Fermanagh
Longford
Tipperary
Carlow
Sligo
I hear the arguments already, too many hammerings, games noncompetitive and too many dead rubbers towards the end and yes I agree with them points but surely it can't be any worse than the current structure. At least teams will know who they're playing from week to week and there won't be anymore situations where Sligo play New York on the May bank holiday weekend and don't play again until the end of June. Or Donegal playing their first game in early May and six weeks later Mayo start their campaign.
So the structure based on these groupings.
Each team play seven games (3 home, 3 away, 1 neutral). To ensure as many competitive games towards the end of the league structure, top 4 in each group qualify for last 16. Where you finish in each group determines who plays who on knockout stages (A1st v D4th, B2nd v C3rd etc =.). Also where you finish in your group determines your seedings for the following year. A team in 7/8th going into last round of games may, by virtue of a win, climb into 6th and become a 3rd seed as opposed to a 4th seed the following year. There is also the argument that to allow all teams to compete for silverware, the bottom 4 in each group should play in essentially an All Ireland b tournament. Some counties who may have just missed out on competing in the All Ireland may not want to compete in this alternative championship but for other teams it is a very real step in the progress of a young or upcoming team and so would provide useful knockout and big game experience. A competition like this type of one lives and dies by the respect it receives from the GAA in the first place, hence the failure of the Tommy Murphy cup. A note on the Tommy Murphy cup, neither Louth or Leitrim found it a useless exercise when playing in front of a near full house in 2006 before the Dublin Mayo game. Certainly not Louth who built on their success in that competition.
The timeframe for this competition would be last weekend in March/1st weekend in April. The 1st weekend would involve all teams. From the following weekend on the groups involved would be staggered. Perhaps groups A & C one weekend and B & D the following weekend. This means that bar the first two weeks, each team will be playing every 2 weeks. The weekends in between matches, players will have to be made available to clubs barring injuries.
So based on this years calender the fixtures would fall as follows:
Round 1:
All groups
30/31/1 March/April
Round 2:
A & C
6/7 April
B & D
13/14 April
Round 3:
A & C
20/21 April
B & D
27/28 April
Round 4:
A & C
4/5/6 May
B & D
11/12 May
Round 5:
A & C
18/19 May
B & D
25/26 May
Round 6:
A & C
1/2/3 June
B & D
8/9 June
Round 7:
A & C
15/16 June
B & D
22/23 June
That would leave 6 weekends designated to club activity with county players including the week after round 7. A suggestion would be that county managers can nominate one of these 6 weekends where their players are not released to their clubs leaving 5 weekends dedicated to league/club championships.
3 week break between group stages and last 16. Players available to clubs for 1st weekend and then not available until county eliminated from championship.
Also teams finishing in the top two of their groups rewarded with home advantage in the last 16.
Last 16
20/21 July
1 week break
Quarter Finals
27/28 July
2 week break
Semi Finals (no more seperate weekneds, one on a Saturday, the other on the Sunday)
14 August
2 week break
All Ireland final
28 August
County boards should then be on a deadline to have club championships over by a certain date in late September/early October.
Provincial councils must have their championships played by early November.
Therefore this enables All Ireland club championship to be completed pre-Christmas.
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