John Fogarty: The bottom line will decide Congress vote on football championship structure

Ulster GAA chief Brian McAvoy opposes the All-Ireland League concept and does not believe it is financially beneficial. Picture: Oliver McVeigh

Speak to enough of the fabled but very real keen GAA observers and you will learn quick enough that Special Congress on October 23 is shaping up to be a talking shop.

Orphaned by a disbanded fixtures review task force, there has been no figurehead to stand over the motions. The most recent roadshow outlining the All-Ireland league and four provincial conferences of eight teams proposals hasn’t been done halfhearted but not with great gusto either.

The idea of moving counties into other provinces to neatly synchronise the four is a dodo although the awareness created by Proposal B in the media and accelerated by the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) last week will give it a fighting stance. Nevertheless, unless there is a push of Rule 42 and black card proportions these next 12 days, it too will die a death and it will be a case of back to the future and the qualifiers returning for 2022.

Given he was the architect of the Super 8, former GAA director general Páraic Duffy was front and centre when it came to selling those All-Ireland quarter-final phases. When his brainchild was dismissed as being financially motivated, he dismissed the criticism as “lazy and cynical”.

His successor Tom Ryan, then director of finance, backed him up. “Even the most committed of patrons will have a job to get to every game once it gets to the quarter-final stage of things. So it’ll be an increase but I don’t think it is going to be the bonanza that, at first glance, looking at the number of games involved that we might have expected.”

Mayo not being involved in the inaugural Super 8 in 2018 confirmed that — the football championship gate receipts of €12.7m was a drop of nearly €4m from the last year of the qualifiers in 2017. With the help of an All-Ireland final replay in 2019 and Mayo making the last four, a handsome €18.2m was returned.

It sure would be good to hear from Ryan right now or director of finance Ger Mulryan, not for their opinions on the proposals, but their expertise. Their projections on what each of them might reap in the way of gate receipts because that is where the heads of county chairpersons, secretaries and treasurers are right now. Others are already calculating. Ulster GAA’s support for round-robin provincial championships, something that is not yet on the table but will be should both the All-Ireland League and provincial conferences motions fail on Saturday week, is completely understandable. They would stand to make the most considering the strength of the competition as it stands.

In its first two years of a round-robin structure, Ulster SFC’s equivalent in hurling, the Munster SHC, brought in €4.054m and €4.206m, an average varying between €363,000 and €382,000 for each of the 11 games. In the previous knock-out year of 2017 when there were four fixtures, €2.577m was brought in and €1.935m in ‘16, averages of €644,250 and €483,750 per game respectively.Pre-Covid, Ulster recorded total gate receipts of €1,758,807 in 2019.

That included eight Ulster SFC games. Groups of five and four counties with a final brings that total to 17. Connected to an All-Ireland, the provincial council will make money.

Finance is not the premise that Ulster chief executive Brian McAvoy has based the majority of his arguments against the All-Ireland League but he has provided an opposing view to GPA chief executive Tom Parsons who believes more championship games will mean more money.

The rub is the majority of counties earn more in gate receipts from the Allianz League than any competition. The season ticket of which they receive over 35% is largely based on the league. They might be convinced by the GPA that an All-Ireland league is the best structure to play in but they need to be assured that the league becoming championship doesn’t lose them income.

It seems a lifetime ago now but there was a time when Limerick officials publicly set out promotion to Division 1A as the primary goal for their senior hurlers.

In December 2015, county secretary Mike O’Riordan said: “Unfortunately, we are in Division 1B at the moment and with the help of God, we can get out of Division 1B in the coming season. That would lead to bigger interest, bigger teams coming in, and bigger gates. That would increase the revenue.”

The year previous, Limerick’s co-manager Donal O’Grady left after he maintained he did not apologise to officials for the league defeat to Offaly, which contributed to them not qualifying from Division 1B. So vital were gate receipts for a team four years shy of winning the first of three All-Ireland titles in four seasons that Limerick refused to say sorry to O’Grady.

In the absence of clarity that their bottom line won’t be impacted, counties are more likely to stick than twist next week. It’s a shame they haven’t been fully informed.

Move against Andy McEntee in Meath defies logic

Meath manager Andy McEntee. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

We mentioned last week that the Meath executive has form when it comes to ousting a manager only for the clubs to think otherwise.

It was a largely different top table whose motion to remove Séamus McEnaney nine years ago failed to receive sufficient backing at an emergency board meeting.

And this time around the executive are not as convincing in their opposition to Andy McEntee, seven of them including senior officials do not believe that he should step down with a year remaining on his current term.

Clubs on Tuesday night could be forgiven for thinking those executive members who want somebody new have left their move far too late. It’s two and a half months since Meath were beaten by Dublin in the Leinster championship.

Clearly, there are some who look back on the row which precipitated Bernard Flynn’s decision to step down as U20 manager as a valid reason to take aim at McEntee. But wouldn’t the powers that be have been better advised to seek an explanation from McEntee for holding onto the U20 players before making any decision?

After a summer when Dublin felt the breath of Meath on their necks for what seems an eternity, on the field at least this move against McEntee defies logic.

“You’d like for the lads to believe that they belong on a stage like this,” McEntee said of his speech to the players after the game.

“Playing Dublin in Croke Park is where most Meath people would like to be, so that’s pretty much the message.”

A man who took the job when few were putting their hands up, there has been a marked progression during McEntee’s reign.

Meath seem to have their heads screwed on with so many football development matters but this attempt to give their senior manager the heave-ho looks clumsy and ill-judged.

Paddy Tally is not Kerry’s bogeyman

Former Down manager Paddy Tally. Picture: INPHO/Bryan Keane

“What does Paddy Tally being involved say about your philosophy?”

Whether the question was loaded or not, Jack O’Connor wasn’t taking any chances and fired back with a query of his own.

“You’re watching teams that I’ve been involved in for many’s a long day, are you? How far back?” the new Kerry manager asked of the journalist who posed the question at last Friday’s press conference.

O’Connor mightn’t have logged in for the county board meeting the Monday previous but he wouldn’t have had to in order to gauge the feeling in some quarters of the county about the arrival of a Tyrone coach on his management ticket.

But such shortsightedness and borderline snobbery ignores the facts that O’Connor previously consulted with a prominent Ulster figure on tactics before guiding Kerry to All-Ireland glory and in 2014 Éamonn Fitzmaurice won a Sam Maguire Cup against the head while playing Donegal at a version of their own game.

“I’m hardly going to change at this hour of my life and go all defensive,” O’Connor maintained.

“My old friend Johnny Culloty said to me one time, he said, ‘Jack, it’s not enough just to win in Kerry, you’ve to win with a bit of style’. That’ll be our intention.”

Behind it, there will have to be substance.

In that regard, Tally will be benevolent, not a bogeyman.

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