McGuinness lashes out at revamped league format

JIM McGUINNESS has slammed proposals to change the format of the Allianz Football League.

The Donegal manager, who led his side to promotion to Division 1 and a Division 2 title earlier this year, feels the plan to change the top two divisions into a single competition with eight teams in both Division 1A and 1B has tarnished their achievement.

“I’m very, very disappointed,” said McGuinness about the plans which will be voted on by Central Council on Saturday. “I am gutted for our own players. We took every game on its merits, we worked as hard as we could to get over the line in every one of those games. We qualified for the league final, went to Croke Park and won the final. All the respect to the teams coming out of Division 3 (Louth and Westmeath), but they can now end up playing Cork, Kerry and Dublin next year and we worked so hard this year to try and manufacture that situation for ourselves.