Offaly board slams fixture changes

OFFALY county board secretary Martin Boland has accused GAA chiefs of changing fixtures ‘to suit themselves’ in light of the decision to defer this weekend’s All-Ireland SHC relegation play-offs.

Offaly had been slated to face Antrim on Saturday in a battle to beat the drop but the match has been postponed, along with the tie between Clare and Wexford, as the GAA attempts to solve the dilemma posed by the Saffrons competing in the Leinster championship for the next three years.

But Boland has expressed his annoyance with the decision in light of the GAA’s refusal to accommodate Offaly two weeks ago when the county’s footballers and hurlers were both in action on Saturday July 4.

Offaly faced Wexford in the first round of the football qualifiers in Wexford Park, while the county’s hurlers entertained Cork in their opening hurling qualifier that evening in Tullamore.

Yet Offaly’s plea to have the matches on different days in an effort to accommodate supporters fell on deaf ears.

“The whole thing is very disappointing for us,” stated Boland. “Two weeks ago when we looked to change the fixtures so that our supporters could see both county teams, the GAA said there was no way that could be done because it would cause problems for their massive fixture plan.

“They couldn’t change it then but now they’re changing their fixtures to suit themselves.”

Boland also insisted that there is ‘no logic’ to the GAA proposing to relegate a team from the Liam MacCarthy Cup.

“There’s absolutely no logic to this idea. I would have thought that the GAA would have learnt their lesson from the football qualifier problems a couple of years ago. They didn’t let Division 4 teams in the qualifiers and then ended up reversing that decision.

“This plan is not promoting hurling. There’s few enough counties competing at the top level in hurling and now they want to reduce that number. In the 1990s, Offaly, Clare and Wexford won five All-Irelands between them. And now there’s a possibility of one of them going down. That won’t help anyone.

“The whole delay is very disappointing for us and it’s hard to know what the GAA will do now. They should have decided this last weekend when the problem arose and it’s open to interpretation as how to solve it.

“In Offaly we’ve had to put club games back another week because of the uncertainty and the clubs are unhappy about that. But we’re forced into it because we don’t know what’s happening.”

Meanwhile Clare secretary Pat Fitzgerald has expressed his hope that the GAA will opt to delay the implementation of the Liam MacCarthy relegation for a year in order to avoid the current difficulty.

“The way we would view it in Clare is that we’d totally prefer not to be in this situation.

“We wouldn’t have wanted to be have a relegation problem. I was aware of the possibility before last Saturday’s game, that we’d have a relegation tie if we lost. Maybe the team management and the players didn’t fully realise it.

“But we’ll have to deal with it now. We’d hope that they will clear up any confusion or ambiguities as soon as possible.

“Because this position isn’t helping anybody. My one hope is that the GAA might wait until next year to implement it. That would help out everyone.”