Munster Council CEO: No ‘simplistic’ solution to All-Ireland SFC issue

Issues surrounding the present structure of the All-Ireland senior football championship will not be resolved by provincial councils relinquishing control of their elite competitions, according to Munster Council CEO Simon Moroney.

GPA chief Dessie Farrell, earlier this week, labelled the provincial structures restrictive, claiming proposed changes which retain the provincial competitions amount to nothing more than “moving the deck chairs around”.

Moroney says it is far too “simplistic” a remedy to suggest the four provincial bodies wash their hands of the provincial championships for the greater good.

“It is a simplistic take on the thing really. You are excluding all the activity that is taking place at club level,” he noted.

“The structures of the elite competitions don’t necessarily portray the strength of the provincial organisation. It is a lot more complex issue than purely down to the structures of the inter-county competition.

“You have to have integrated solutions which would embody the club competition and so on.

“Changing one element might not bring about the huge change people expect.”

Moroney is not surprised by calls for a structure change given the heavy defeats shipped by Tipperary and Longford at the weekend, but says talk alone will bring about no improvement.

“That point of view [that the provincial structures are hindering the game] will always come up after games where there are wide margins. The margins of defeat at the weekend were margins that don’t often arise.

“Talk on these provincial structures won’t lead to change. Changes can only come through Congress and clubs putting forward motions advocating change.

“There hasn’t been a high level of activity in relation to motions on competition structures. There was only one at this year’s Congress and that was in relation to the Leinster SFC.

“We have to be realistic, we have to recognise the structures we have and how decisions can be made in moving away from existing structures to new ones.”