Club-county balance crucial, says Brennan

INCOMING GAA President Nickey Brennan believes one of the major issues facing the Association will be the battle to redress the balance in games activity between inter-county and club teams.

“It is a challenge for us to try to come up with extra dates, but we can only make that happen two ways.

“Either we get rid of some of the (extra) competitions, or we condense the playing of existing competitions into a shorter period of time,” he said.

“But we have only 52 weeks in the year and for a couple of those we wouldn’t be able to play Gaelic games.

“Hopefully, the advent of floodlighting will maybe help a little, but I would not want to see it as the issue that will resolve all our problems.”

Reporting on the first club forum held in Killarney last October - attended by about half the affiliated clubs in the country - Mr Mulvihill says two particular issues were highlighted.

One emphasised the need for well-structured games programmes as “a huge bone of contention”.

The other related to getting more young people involved in administration at local level.

Mr Brennan confirmed there is still a possibility of the New York Board developing its planned playing facility on Randalls Island.

Over the weekend, Association leaders met board officers and the RIGS (Randalls Island Gaelic Sports) directors separately. The RIGS directors are all former board officers and their position was established when they needed to set up a corporation to negotiate with New York city authorities.

Mr Brennan said: “The game is on again.”

However, he would not elaborate further.

The GAA’s Management Committee had initially abandoned the project. RIGS was only being offered a 20-year licence by the city, the board could not be guaranteed the pitches’ availability at weekends, and the capital investment required was considered prohibitive, with a minimum $40 million (€33.1m) development cost.