Horan: onus is on county boards for club fixtures

With the Club Players’ Association (CPA) threatening to “escalate” their stand-off against the GAA over club fixtures, GAA President John Horan says it is up to individual county boards to provide players with a programme that satisfies everyone.

In a statement, the CPA said: “We have a clear trail of correspondence from Croke Park about the new Fixtures Group, but it has yet to be constituted or a date set for meetings.

"We thought we were being listened to on the formation of the group, its timeframe of activity and its terms of reference. Sadly, progress has since ground to a halt, despite our efforts and enthusiasm. Words but no action.”

The statement finished with a threat:

We will be in touch again soon to update you on next steps, including possible escalation. We ask you as a club player to get ready to stand up for your club against continued inaction.

However, Horan said there is no disconnect between the average club player and the association, though clubs can experience layoffs of several months in summer while county action takes over.

“Every county has to create its own situation,” said Horan. “There’s lots of counties that are very happy with where they are at the moment, but from a national level, if you look at it, the National League is run in a two-month period.

"It starts at the start of February and it’s gone by the end of March. Championship starts in May and predominantly by the first week in July, 24 of the 32 counties in football are gone out of the championship, you only have six counties left in the hurling championship. I cannot see how you can condense that a whole lot more.”

He continued: “Two months for the National League, clubs don’t want February and March really, do they? We’ve given up September to the clubs, which a lot of people questioned, because it’s the loss of a huge promotional tool for us as an organisation, with kids coming back to school and the All-Irelands coming up.

"Now kids are going back to school and the All-Irelands are over. Those sacrifices have been made, I know some people make the argument that we need breaks, but if you create breaks in any of those periods, everyone’s going to want a run-in period.

“The inter-county manager is going to want the players for 10 days before they play a match, the club manager’s going to want them back for a week before they play a match, so the more breaks you create in those blocks the more wasted time there actually is. By it’s nature, everyone wants championship and that creates uncertainty. You have to have a start point and a finish point, and you have to commit yourself to both of those dates.”