McGee: Central Council decision a good day for the clubs

"A good day for clubs" is how Football Review Committee (FRC) chairman Eugene McGee described Saturday’s Central Council meeting.

The specially-convened session to debate the second part of the FRC’s report surprisingly saw Central Council back the group’s call for the Central Competitions Control Committee to be handed overall authority for fixture-making at all levels. However, the re-jig of the provincial championships, shifting four counties from Leinster and Ulster to Munster and Connacht to make four groups of eight, was rejected.

McGee had expected it would not garner support, but admitted he was taken aback the recommendation to give the national CCCC so much power got the green light.

“I was surprised that went through. I don’t know if anybody has studied that at all.”

He was pleased to see more proposals than he had expected given the go-ahead although there had been a sense the call to finish the club championships in a calendar year would be favoured.

“It’s a major gesture to the clubs and it’s up to them to respond now and get their county boards to put their fixtures in order. The finishing line for all championships will be December. All boards who runs competitions have no option but to get their accounts in order. If you’re starting a business the first you thing you do is put down a completion date.

“That’s not the case as things stand because, as we all know, provincial club finals can come sometimes go late into December and even into January. So that will be all over and I think clubs will like that because they will get some element of certainty. An awful lot of counties have improved their club calendars in recent years; a great number of them have come up with sensible solutions.

“But there is still a lot of them who don’t and there is this worrying thing about some counties abandoning their championships for three or four months as long as they are in the All-Ireland series. There is still a lot of work to do but there is an air of optimism about change probably because of the pressure coming from club players asking what the hell is going on. It’s working in a lot of counties and people are realising the slipshod method can’t go on forever. The GAA moves at a snail’s pace but I would regard whatever progress was made on Saturday as important. It’s up to other people in the future to carry it on now.”

A special group will be established by GAA president Liam O’Neill and director general Páraic Duffy to look at how the club championships proposal can be implemented. They will report back to Central Council with detailed proposals later this year with a mind to them forming motion or motions at Congress and coming in for 2016. It was also decided on Saturday the Railway Cup football competition be relaunched with the possibility of making it into a festival competition.

A national strategy for less successful football counties will also be drawn up, guided by a national steering group chaired by Duffy and with a membership drawn from all the relevant stakeholders. Council also chose not to abolish Division 1 semi-finals.