Football has to be a tiered championship, says Páraic Duffy

A tiered All-Ireland senior football championship would best serve the game, according to GAA director general Páraic Duffy, but he admitted such a format will be difficult to achieve.

Duffy regards the current system, where 32 teams get the same opportunity to win the one championship, as “not sustainable” and admits in his report that the Super 8 All-Ireland quarter-finals addition this season is “likely to be a temporary arrangement in that it will allow the association time to devise a system that will meet the needs of less successful counties”.

Expanding on the issue yesterday, Duffy said: “I’m conscious that I don’t want to be passing the problem on to somebody else, but I do think, I honestly believe, at some point in the future it has to be a tiered championship. We have it in hurling. We have five tiers. I’m not saying we would have five tiers in football.”