A few steps to bring games to the next level

CHRISTY COONEY’S decision to re-ignite the debate about splitting Dublin in two seems pretty silly this week. If a united Dublin team can’t cope for 20 minutes without Bernard Brogan, how would a second side in the city manage an entire season without him? Would we divide Bernard in two as well?

The GAA president is perfectly entitled to raise issues like urbanisation and redrawing provincial boundaries.

But we are also entitled to ask the question, why now? The Corkman is about to enter the last year of his presidency. He has minimal chance of being able to do anything to change the status quo.

The same applies to his remark about the ‘cancer’ of payments to managers.

If I had cancer, I’d want to get treatment immediately.

Cooney’s comments were not rooted in the here and now. It was like talking about putting a man on the moon before the invention of the bicycle. The GAA has a mountain of other challenges to overcome before it can start embarking on such epic changes. Moreover, the Congress in Mullingar has raised serious doubts about the ability of our county board officials to make the type of radical decisions that would improve the GAA.

In the absence of intelligent decision-making, the Association needs its leaders providing relevant ideas.

Given that there is something of a void in that arena, this column is going to step into the breach.

The following proposals are designed to address some of the key problems in today’s GAA.

Kill the cancer of hypocrisy.

By this stage, the hypocrisy involved in the illegal payment of managers is causing more damage to the fabric of the Association than the practice itself.

An organisation lacks credibility when its lawmakers are lawbreakers. Club and county board officials should not be handing over brown paper bags.

There is a relatively easy way to stop this longstanding hypocrisy.

Firstly, the GAA can allow managers to be paid.

However, if members want to maintain the ban on payments, then a new rule must be introduced.

The only way to break the black market culture is to make the criteria for management the same as the rules for participation. Put simply, individuals can only manage their native clubs and counties. At one fell swoop the introduction of this legislation stops nearly all the high-profile recruitment and ultra-generous mileage expenses.

A proposal backing the payment of managers, and a proposal for the new rule that has just been outlined, should be drafted and put on the agenda for next year’s Congress.

Clubs can debate the issue and county boards will be mandated to vote accordingly. By this time this year, the cancer of hypocrisy can be killed for good.

Relegation Play-Offs in the Football League.

If the GAA needs to increase gate receipts, then fans will flock to watch a relegation battle much quicker than a league semi-final. The automatic relegation of two teams from an eight-team group is very harsh. Apply that ratio to the Premier League and five teams would be demoted every season.

The employment of scoring differences and head-to-heads to separate teams isn’t entirely satisfactory.

Under this new system, only the bottom-placed team would be automatically relegated.

The teams ranked in sixth and seventh place would be paired in a play-off to decide which county takes the plunge.

Put the Majority ahead of the Minority.

GAA leaders routinely talk about the importance of the club while at the same time protecting a fixtures programme which pays limited regard to club players. It’s all a bit of a quagmire. The county schedule disrupts the club schedule. The Sigerson Cup and the hurling league also disrupt the inter-county football schedule.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t take 10 weekends to play seven league games. The Allianz Football League takes an eternity due to breaks for the Hurling League and the Sigerson Cup. This needs to stop.

The Sigerson Cup should be run-off before Christmas. When the Football League starts on the first Sunday in February, the seven group games and the semi-finals (and my new relegation play-offs) could be played over nine weekends. The extra weekend will allow for any games that were called off due to bad weather. If this streamlined calendar had been employed this year the group games would have been completed by March 27 instead of April 10.

A Closed Fortnight for Club Footballers

‘The wife’ wants to book a holiday in August but he will not give the green light because there might be a Championship game that week. Worse again, he tells her to book the holiday and there is a Championship game. If he takes the trip, he’s a traitor and a dog. If he doesn’t take the trip, then he needs to hide all the sharp knives in the kitchen. All county boards should be obliged to have a fixture-free fortnight in July or August. This would allow players to book holidays and make plans safe in the knowledge they will not be letting anyone down.

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