Naughton: All codes suffering because of split season

LGFA President Trina Murray receives her Presidential medal from outgoing LGFA President Mícheál Naughton. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

The outgoing LGFA president has described the split season as damaging, wants a two-week gap between all four All-Ireland senior finals, and believes the ladies football decider should go back to its pre-Covid slot of mid-September.

Micheál Naughton, whose four-year term as Ladies Football president finished up at the weekend, said all codes are suffering because of the split season, ladies football most of all.

The crowd of 30,340 that watched the Kerry-Galway 2024 decider, played on the August Bank Holiday weekend, was the smallest All-Ireland final attendance in 10 years. 

Indeed, the attendance at both the 2022 and 2023 finals fell below the 50,000-mark that had been surpassed in 2018 and 2019 when the concluding day of the ladies football championship took place in mid-September and before the advent of the split season.

“The four All-Ireland finals are far too congested, and families just cannot afford it. We'll have to look at the whole approach and moving the championship back. It is too congested and not working,” Naughton told the Irish Examiner.

“You need a two-week break between All-Ireland finals. The week after the hurling final, you don't get time to properly analyse and savour it because you're going straight into the football final. And then the build-up to our ladies football final suffers because obviously they're going to be talking about the men's football final for a couple of days after it. It is just too much.

“Last year, you had Galway in the football, ladies football, and camogie finals. You were asking families from that county to travel three weekends in-a-row. It is too expensive and virtually impossible.

“We know, from surveys, talking to families, members, and teachers, that it would be more beneficial to go back to September for our All-Ireland finals. The build-up in schools to our All-Ireland finals and having students going home to their parents talking about the games, that was a huge marketing point for us. Instead, families are now on their holidays when our finals are taking place.” 

Although 85% of male and female inter-county players view the split-season positively, as per a GPA survey last year, Naughton argues that the current calendar is doing more harm than good.

“Yes, the split season benefits the club a wee bit, but I don't think it has benefited the clubs to the extent that people have thought. The bigger picture is doing more damage to our game and our association than it was in the past. I definitely think our finals should be in September for the promotion and coverage of our game.” 

Streamlining the fixture calendars of the three associations, according to Naughton, is the big-ticket item, along with membership, that needs to be sorted out to deliver integration. 

He was adamant that ladies football would secure county venues more easily if there wasn’t full overlap between the men’s and women’s inter-county competitions.

“For our League finals this year, we are finding it difficult [to source pitches] because the men’s championship will have started.

“Money will have to be injected [by the Government] for pitches. There are a lot of good schools pitches that are not being utilised that could be going forward. We have to look outside the box. The Dome in Connacht, while unfortunately out of use at the minute, there should be one in every province.” 

Elsewhere on the road to integration, he doesn’t believe one president could serve the three merging bodies, while insisting the LGFA’s injury fund be retained as it provides more cover than the GAA’s equivalent.

“If we were set up within the GAA 50 years ago, would Ladies football be as strong today as it is now? I actually don't think so because it gave us time to flourish, it gave us time to get our own independence, it gave us time to tweak little things. We came with the hooter. Integration is trying to pick the best of what the three have.” 

The Donegal native was shocked to hear the recent Irish Examiner report that the GAA roll-out of the public clock-hooter at inter-county level will cost approximately €250,000, with each county board facing a bill of approximately €7,000 for the technology.

Naughton said LGFA hooter costs were considerably less.

“We are not paying over €1,000 [per match], and that is just at the venues where they don't already have a countdown clock. A lot of venues already have the countdown clock. We are definitely not paying anywhere near that.”