Brian Fenton: No summer championship is "crap"

Dublin star Brian Fenton says “it’s crap” not to be playing a regular Championship but is not critical of the GAA for pushing it back to at least October.

Hopeful that it is played this year but not a fan of games going behind closed doors, the midfielder initially thought the competition was going to be abandoned completely.

“I look at things like, they cancelled the Olympics this year. They’re cancelling all these big sporting events and you’re looking at it saying ‘how can the GAA be the exception?’ So that was the initial reaction.

“I know there is a bit of confusion and people were coming out during the week. But what can they (the GAA) do, only base it off the guidelines? It’s easy to say they should give us guidance. As a player, of course, you would love that. It’s on or it’s off. Be ready for this date.

“But nobody is in a position to give that information. It’s crap obviously not to have a regular Championship as it seems but I wouldn’t blame the GAA for not saying ‘it’s on’ or ‘it’s off’. They’re basing it off what they’re being told like we all are.”

Fenton admits the cessation has shaken “everything” about his football career but living with his girlfriend Sarah, who as a doctor who had been working on the Mater Hospital’s Covid-19 team, he knows how to put it into perspective.

The possibility of playing behind closed doors doesn’t excite him. “Luckily enough, it’s not for me to decide. I play Gaelic football to hear that roar, to play in front of Hill 16, to play in front of my family and club-mates and Dublin fans. It would be funny, it would be certainly difficult.”

Dublin have won five of their All-Irelands under two different Championship structures and a knock-out system wouldn’t bother the Raheney man. “It would be very exciting. Hopefully, there will be a crowd there to see it, to have that intensity.

The loser is gone here, you would love to have that sort of hype that you get in the semi-final and final every year. It would be great to watch it and hopefully it would be going the right way and not sort of forced into a few weeks before Christmas.”

Meanwhile, the Ladies Gaelic Football Association will issue surveys to team captains, managers, referees, club and county executives to gauge their views on how the organisation should respond to the current situation. Further clarification on the All-Ireland championships will be provided in the coming weeks. The association’s management committee on Thursday also agreed to defer their registration date to August 1 in an attempt to assist clubs.