Would GAA (football) solve a lot of its problem if it had a single, proper championship?

I'm not sure they would have to get rid of the provincials. There'd be a way to keep them.

Take the NFL as it is, 4 divisions of 8, 7 games each, two up, two down. No bother, grand format, but get rid of the league finals, top team wins the league. Now say you have a cup competition, based on the provincial system. Make it knockout, finish on the day, penalties of needed. You could play them on alternate weeks with two rest weeks thrown in.

Then have the Championship structure as above. 3 tiers, two groups of 6 in Sam Maguire Tier. Top team of each group go straight to the AISF. Team 2 gets home advantage against team 3 of the opposite group. Apply the same throughout the tiers (other tiers would have groups of 5).Bottom team of each group gets relegated, two finalists promoted to upper tier. There would be 6 weeks to run off the groups (5 rounds and a rest week).

Over the course of the season, you could have a competition structure like;

All it takes is a bit of planning and the willingness to sacrifice replays.

I fully agree. Simply arguing "oh we can't get rid of them, there would be too much opposition" just doesn't cut it. As you point out there have been far more radical reforms to Championship structure over the years which have been welcomed by supporters. And any reforms that abolished the shambles of the Leinster Championship will be popular with supporters all around the country.

Better to ignore the blinded and bitter one .

That "despite" is doing a lot of work. I agree with trialling things but sadly, any format that retains the shambles of the Leinster Championship simply won't work. It needs to be abolished, end of. Any Championship structure that retains the shambles of Leinster as a Provincial, feeding into the All-Ireland, is a non-starter- the supporter interest just isn't there anymore. It's simply too uncompetitive. More radical change is needed.

I wouldn't bother replying to them. Their anti-Dublin crusade is well known at this point. And they will never admit to how lopsided Munster is, as being a Kerry supporter it suits them nicely.

Your still wrong i'll correct it for you again , any format that retains the shambles of the Munster Championship needs to be abolished .

Better to ignore the blinded bitter and twisted one .

14 years of nonsense, from the blind bitter and twisted one .

Ye could come to a compromise and say "they're both sh!te".

A fair assessment I think. Sadly, one point can't be denied is that the Leinster Council has been an unmitigated disaster for both codes. Hurling has arguably never been as weak in the province to the point our championship now contains two outside teams, and football has been beyond brutal, for a province that is primarily football it really has been desperate.

I'd forgive the likes of Carlow, Laois, Offaly and Westmeath because they have small enough populations yet do put in serious effort in both codes and are very competitive at their own levels, but given the populations of Wicklow, Meath, Kildare, Wexford and Louth alone there should be at least very competitive in one code never mind both, and Kilkenny and Dublin repeatedly fail badly in at least one code (I base Dublin hurling purely on population). And Longford is just a GAA wasteland.

The lack of direction, lack of investment, lack of promotion and the schools wasteland of Leinster in both codes by the Leinster Council has been chronic for decades now. Yes, counties have to take responsibility for themselves, but there's no joined up thinking, there's no togetherness and there's no plan to drive on in the same way there is in Munster for example.

Until the Leinster council get the finger out, then both codes in Leinster are going to be in a poor state.

Excellent post, you've hit the nail on the head about the shambles in Leinster, the population issues there, how the Leinster Council has failed, the lack of direction etc. Outstanding in fact. I'm not sure why some posters are convinced everything is come conspiracy- it's clear as day what is happening within Leinster is just unacceptable, and there is no plan or path towards fixing things. What is happening in other provinces like Connaught or Ulster is almost irrelevant- even if they were fully flourishing, Leinster is not, and will never be again.

This is why it just needs to be abolished, at least as part of the All-Ireland Championship. And it's because I don't think the Leinster Council "can get the finger out"; minor reform is pointless, we need to start afresh. No ifs, and or buts. Abolish and reform with something new, which is what this thread is supposed to be about, despite certain parties trying to drag posters into pointless arguments.