Flynn brands football structure as ‘madness’

Paul Flynn has added significant weight to the growing clamour for serious structural change in football, claiming the length of the overall season is “madness”.

The back-to-back Dublin football All Star didn’t hold back in his summary of the Gaelic football landscape which, he claimed, is screwing club players and pointed out that his club, Fingallians, went two months in spring without a competitive game.

For inter-county players though, they face a 12-month fixtures calendar. Flynn said he was actually lucky at certain stages to pick up mid-term injuries as they afforded him a break he wouldn’t normally have got. The All-Ireland winning half-forward was asked if he believed a general disconnect had emerged between GAA top brass and the players themselves.

“Yeah, I do,” replied Flynn. “I’ll probably get in trouble for saying it but I do because the whole structure of football in general [is wrong]. Playing football for the whole year is madness. There’s no down season at all.

“When you go back to the club you’re under pressure there and then you’re straight into it with Dublin again. There’s no real break at all. I’ve got injured for some stages — but it’s actually been lucky for me because I’ve kind of been able to take a break.

“Lads have been just constantly going and it’s a bit of a joke, especially for lads who are playing senior championship at a higher level. It’s just... it’s madness.”

Asked for his solution, Flynn said club and county action should be run off at the same time.

“I just think they should run it all concurrently. The club lads are getting screwed because all they want is to play ball. Whenever we [Dublin] are playing league, they should play league. And then fit in the Championship the same way. But no game for them should be held up. Like, we played a game in March with the club and then there was no game until May. You know what I mean? That’s crazy.

“They could have got a full run of [club] league games, it could have been over practically and then run off the Championship. They should bring players into the equation, current players, past players, your board members, all in the one room and thrash it out.”

Despite his general fears for the future of football, Flynn admitted his personal situation is progressing nicely with Dublin. Initially deployed as a midfielder and even used in defence, he has found his niche at wing-forward. “I used to get burned out in 20 minutes,” he admitted of the highly attritional role. “You have to be smart about it, get to know when to press, when to drop, when to support the attacker and when to support the defence.”