Revamping the Football Championship. Whats your thoughts?

The Bull

I dont know about you but i think that the gaa is seriously goin to have too consider revamping the championship in the future if it is to remain competative. I have had a go at restructuring the current format and wondered what the rest of you though or maybe you could post ur ideas. I have kept it fairly simple spliting the counties into 8 groups of 4 teams like the champions league, with home and away games with the top two goin through to the last 16. I have also tried to keep the more sucessfull counties apart but also keep them close to each other so as more fans would be enticed to travel to the away games with near neighbours etc. Also each team has a min of six games in the championship and not knocked out like alot of teams in june. Also it may generate more revenue for countys with a minimum three home games in the championship season. What do people think ?

Sample 2009 calendar.

Group A: Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, Longford.
Group B: Dublin, Wicklow, Kildare, Kilkenny,
Group C: Tyrone, Derry, Donegal, Fermanagh
Group Kerry, Limerick, Clare, Tipperary

Group E: Galway, Roscommon, Offaly, Laois
Group F: Westmeath, Meath, Cavan, Louth
Group G: Armagh, Down, Antrim, Monaghan
Group H: Cork, Waterford, Wexford, Carlow

May 02/03/04 Group A – H Round 1
May 09/10 Group A – D Round 2
May 16/17 Group E – H Round 2
May 23/24 Group A – D Round 3
May 30/31 Group E – H Round 3
June 06/07 Group A – D Round 4
June 13/14 Group E – H Round 4
June 20/21 Group A – D Round 5
June 27/28 Group E – H Round 5
July 04/05 Group A – D Round 6
July 11/12 Group E – H Round 6
July 18/19 All Ireland Senior Football Championship Last 16
Aug 1/2/3 All Ireland Senior Football Championship Quarter-Finals.
Aug 23 All Ireland Senior Championship Semi-Finals.
Aug 30 All Ireland Senior Championship Semi-Finals.
Sept 20 All Ireland Senior Championship Finals.

Bluetonic

Wicklow, Kildare, Kilkenny (:eek:)... we'd be better off playing challenge matches for the summer.

It needs to changed but not into a format like that, maybe combined Connaught and Munster for a start and have two from the quarters being made up from it obviously. Leinster is just week at the moment, it will get better. Ulster seems to be competitive enough based on previous recent years.

phil

I don't think too many people would be in favour of removing the provincial championship (myself included) so I think straight off, it's a non-runner.

Poor_old_gill

More intercounty games?
Club delegates wont vote for this as it will hinder club football- if club delegates vote against it- then the county board has to vote against it.
The system you have proposed will never happen.

The only way forward is a 2 tier system but that would never be voted in either

Daysha

A lot problems I see with that structure:

A team could technically lose 3 games and go on to win an All-Ireland. One of the reasons the group qualifiers in hurling was abandoned was because you could win an AI after 2 defeats, so there's no way you could push it further.

It takes 9 games to reach an All-Ireland final. Now if they were all top class games then that would be ok, but for Dublin 6 of those would include home and away matches against Kildare, Wicklow and Kilkenny!

The group stages would be severely drab affairs. Without any offence intended to their Munster counterparts, do you really think Kerry would be happy playing 6 games against Clare, Tipp and Limerick? The big teams will walk them and then resort to reserve squads for the remaining group games and attendences would plummet because of the lack of intensive games.

Again, remember the hurling system? It was severely criticised for being nothing more than glorified league matches and the Championship didn't really start until the quarter finals, and that was only after each county were to play 3 group games. To see that doubled and to see the competitiveness fall even further would be GAA suicide.

Why would you scrap the provinces if you're so worried about making sure fans don't have to travel far for games? We already don't need to as long as the provinces remain intact. And in the long run would fans really want to play the same 3 closest neighbours year in year out?

Sorry but the cons far outweight the pro's.

The Bull

Not sayin that my proposal would work the idea was just to gauge the general perception of change and maybe others could post there own views on a change, that is if they are open to change. i feel that the gaa are losing ground all the time against soccer and now especilly rugby, so thats my point i guess.

Daysha

The Bull wrote: »

Not sayin that my proposal would work the idea was just to gauge the general perception of change and maybe others could post there own views on a change, that is if they are open to change. i feel that the gaa are losing ground all the time against soccer and now especilly rugby, so thats my point i guess.

It's something that's debated fairly frequently around here alright. Check out here and here from some of the more recent topics.