Jack Anderson: My plan to redraw the GAA's football calendar

As of now, 2022’s football championship will be the current provincial championship structures with “back door” qualifiers, the Tailteann Cup, and knockout quarter-finals. Picture: Diarmuid Greene / Sportsfile

As the winter approaches, a key agenda item for the GAA is how it might restructure its senior inter-county football championships. At a special congress on 23 October, a proposal — flipping the provinces to spring and having a league-championship in the summer – obtained a majority but not the necessary one of 60%.

As of now, 2022’s football championship will be the current provincial championship structures with “back door” qualifiers, the Tailteann Cup, and knockout quarter-finals.

Senior GAA administrators have hinted that prior to the next GAA Congress in February 2022, a committee will be established to come up with further options. The front runner appears to be a Holy Trinity-like blend of the existing provincial championships, league, and All-Ireland series, into one.

St Patrick used the shamrock to simply explain the Trinity. The political complexities of the GAA mean that not even divine intervention may suffice. Hence the rumour that Croke Park is seeking Jim Gavin to chair the new committee.

The task may not however be as complex as first seems.

What follows is a proposal under which every team is given (a) the chance to play for the Sam Maguire (through the provinces); (b) the opportunity to win three trophies (provincial, league, and championship); and (c) a minimum of 12 competitive games annually.

Stage 1: Provinces

The provincial championships would be round-robin in format — Ulster and Leinster would need two groups with cross-over semi-finals — played in spring. Under this system, a team could play a maximum of seven provincial games, a minimum of four. Based on the 2022 calendar, you could start round 1 on the weekend of, say, 30 January, giving you six more weekends until 13 March 2022 to sort out your finalists, aiming to play your provincial finals on St Patrick’s Day.

The provincial championships would not be stand-alone competitions. The four champions would be guaranteed preferential home games in stages 2 (the league), 3 (championship), and 4 (quarter-finals) below and could also activate a wildcard to ensure a place in the Sam Maguire.

Stage 2: League

This stage should operate as the league does currently — four divisions of eight.

Each team plays seven games against its respective divisional opponents. Provincial winners are guaranteed a majority of home games. The top team in each division is crowned league champion.

To ensure that all league games are meaningful, the bottom three teams in a division are relegated, the top three teams promoted. The real interest here would be between Divisions 2 and 3 because once the league is complete, the teams in Division 1 and 2 would be ranked and seeded to play in the Sam Maguire; those in Divisions 3 and 4 would compete for the Tailteann Cup.

The exception would be if a provincial champion ended up in Division 3 or 4. In that instance, they could activate their wildcard.

The format for the Sam Maguire and Tailteann Cup would be exactly the same to encourage double header games, including all the way to the finals of both. This would be necessary to ensure that the Tailteann Cup gets proper exposure.

Stage 3: Championship

Based loosely on the 2019 football leagues, (the last, full pre-Covid NFL), an application of this system would mean that you would end up, after promotion and relegation, with a Division 1 as follows: Kerry (declared champions, Div 1), Mayo, Tyrone, Dublin, Galway, and Meath (promoted as Division 2 champions) with Donegal and Fermanagh.

Division 2 would be Monaghan, Roscommon, Cavan, Kildare, Armagh, and Westmeath, promoted as Division 3 champions with Laois and Down.

The Sam Maguire would then proceed as follows. Kerry, Mayo, Tyrone and Dublin would be seeded into Pot 1. Pot 2 would be Galway, Meath, Donegal and Fermanagh. Pot 3 would feature Monaghan, Roscommon, Cavan, Kildare. Armagh, Westmeath, Laois and Down in Pot 4. One team would be drawn from each pot to make four groups of four — Championship Groups A to D.

Let’s say that in Group A you end up with Kerry (seed 1), Galway, Monaghan, and Armagh. The fixtures would go as follows, keeping in mind that where possible a provincial champion should get the option of a home venue for their first game, otherwise it goes to the higher seed: Kerry (at home) v Galway, the winner going straight into the quarters (let’s say Kerry). Galway get a second chance against the winners of Monaghan (home) v Armagh (let’s say Monaghan). The loser (Armagh) finishes bottom of group A.

The bottom team in each Championship Group goes into a relegation semi-final etc to be replaced by the winner of the Tailteann Cup.

The winner of Galway v Monaghan (let’s say Monaghan) goes into the quarter-finals as second in Group A.

With the four Championship Groups, it would, of course, be easier to simply get them to play each other once and the top two go through to the quarters. But “Champions League” style groups can lead to dead rubbers. The above system introduces an element of knockout football and crucially rewards a good league placing with a home draw, a second chance to make the last eight, and a better seeding in the quarters.

In the (relatively) unlikely event that a provincial winner was relegated to Division 3 or did not get promoted to Division 2, a wildcard could be activated.

Let’s say, in our scenario, Derry won Ulster. The wild card would mean that as a prelim, Derry would be drawn into one of the four Championship Groups. Let’s say Derry is drawn into Group A with Kerry, Galway, Armagh, and Monaghan. In that scenario, Derry’s provincial wildcard would be activated to give them a home draw against Armagh. The winners of that game would meet Monaghan. The winners of Derry/Armagh v Monaghan would then meet the losers of Kerry v Galway for the right to go into the quarter-final draw.

Stage 4: The All-Ireland Series

For each of your four groups at stage 3, you end up with two teams going into the quarters — the All-Ireland series proper. Kerry, with the three other Championship Group winners, would go into the seeded side of the quarter-final draw (Pot 1).

Monaghan, with the three other group runners-up, into the unseeded side (Pot 2).

One team from each pot is then drawn for the quarter-finals. A provincial champion should get the option of a home venue. Semi-finals are open draw.

Double headers — one quarter-final of a Tailteann Cup followed by a Sam Maguire quarter-final — should be scheduled where possible. The four semi-finals of the Tailteann and Sam Maguire Cups should be played as mixed double headers in Croke Park over one weekend. The finals of both cups to be held on the same day at Croke Park.

Consecutively, you would need 12 weeks to run off the above. There are 16 weekends from Easter 2022 to end of July 2022.

One final point: the above could run neatly in parallel to hurling and the split club/inter county season: provincials in football and hurling leagues between end January and St Patrick’s Day; football league-championship in parallel to hurling provincial round robins etc from Easter to July.

In the short break between St Patrick’s Day and Easter, club activity would likely begin and, shorn of inter-county players, it might be an option for the provinces (at the best time of the year) to stage meaningful inter-county club leagues, say on Friday or Saturday nights, for club players, rather that the grim challenge circuit or overly familiar county club leagues.

So, there it is: a plan that blends the provincial championships, league, a back door, and the Sam Maguire/Tailteann Cups. St Patrick would have needed a four-leaf clover.