Revamping The Gaelic Football Championship
The Divisional Group-Stage Model
The Current Football Season in Games
- Pre-season competitions, e.g. FBD League, start as early as the first weekend in January: 3 to 5 games per team
- The League: 7 to 9 games
- The Championship, ending in late August: Anywhere from 2 to 8 Games
Not including replays and challenge matches along the way
Taking that into account the more successful teams are playing as many as 20 to 21 games a year with the weaker counties only playing maybe 10 or 11 games per year.
The Big Idea
The first thing we need to do is get rid of the National League as it currently stands. It’s a great competition, undoubtedly the superior of the two, but the players and fans just don’t care quite as much, at least for now!
Yes the quality has improved in recent years but you get the sense that neither the fans nor the teams are truly invested in it. One eye is always on Sam.
However, if we are to ensure that each county gets a greater amount of high quality championship games per year we need to keep using the league format — we just need to alter it to fit our Championship.
First, we need to structure the championship into a proper and even group system and get rid of the current lop-sided provisional groupings.
I propose we split the Championship into 4 Leagues or Groupings, each with 8 teams. We can (and should) keep a loose provisional look to these leagues but they will cross boundaries where necessary.
The 4 Leagues: Northern, Eastern, Southern & Western — Each league will then be split into 2 divisions, with the current weaker (e.g. Div 3/4) counties starting in division 2 for year 1.
The ‘League/Group Stage’ of the Championship would look something like this:
I am open to moving some counties around, this is just a rough split —for example historical rivals may have a desire to stay in the same league, e.g. Cavan & Monaghan.
Current Provincial councils can be repurposed into above 4 leagues, e.g. Connacht council will become the Western council.
Please note how each League is split into two divisions/groups.
NY would also have to be omitted.
The Group Stages/Regular Season
A team will play each of the other 3 teams in their own division twice — once home and once away: total 6 games per team
Every team will also play all 4 teams in the other division in their League once, playing two games at home and two away, randomly assigned (or they could also be neutral venues if preferable, e.g. double headers or large crowds expected, etc). For example, if you are a team in the Western League Division 1 you will play each of the teams in the Western League Division 2 once: total 4 games per team
Every team then plays against each of the 4 teams in a different League at the same divisional level once. Again it will be two home and two away games randomly assigned — This means a division 1 team will play 4 other division 1 teams from a different league in the one year. A division 2 team will play 4 other division 2 teams in a different league. Each season it would rotate to be a different league, in other words the league teams you play in year 1 you will not play again until year 4 and so on: total 4 games
At this point we are up to 14 Championship games played for ALL teams.
This number of games (14) is about the same number as teams currently play with league and pre-season combined and more than some of the current weaker counties get to play in a whole year! 10 of these 14 games will have been against teams at the same divisional level while 10 of the 14 will have been against teams in the same league/geographical area.
For 20 of the 32 teams the group stage will be the end of the road.
A Sample ‘Group Stage’ Fixture List (using above groupings):
Mayo All-Ireland Championship 2025 Group-Stage Fixtures (Not in this exact order):
Galway(H & A), Donegal(H & A), Roscommon(H & A), Sligo(H), London(A), Leitrim(H), Cavan(A), (Dublin(H), Kildare(A), Meath(H), Wicklow(A))*
*Western Division 1 teams play against Eastern Division 1 teams in Year 1. In Year Two they would play 4 Southern teams and in Year Three play 4 Northern teams from the same divisional level.
The Play-offs And League Finals
Each of the 8 divisional winners go through to the next round.
The winners of each division 2 are promoted to division 1 for the following season and the bottom placed sides in division 1 are relegated to division 2 for the next season.
The 2nd place team in each division 1 also go through to the next round.
We now have 12 teams left, 3 in each league, two from division 1 and one from division 2.
Firstly, each division 1 runner-up must then play against the division 2 winners in their league (The “Wildcard Game”). The winners of that game will then play the division 1 winners from their league in a league final.
After the 4 league finals we will be left with 4 teams. League trophies could be presented at this stage. We can even keep the same names on the trophies as we now now such as the ‘Nestor Cup’ in the Western League.
We are now up to 15/16 Championship games played by each qualified team with 3 games left.
The All-Ireland Semi Final and Final
A random semi-final draw will be made with the four remaining teams or could be done rotationally or using league seeding. The winners of the semi finals will go on to play in the Final where the All-Ireland Champion will be crowned.
They will have played 17 or 18 games to become All-Ireland champions.
What This Means
Well first off, the eventual winners of the All-Ireland will have been given a much tougher test than they currently are given. It is currently possibly for a team like Mayo or Kerry to win an All-Ireland playing 5 games (Edit: Now 8 games with introduction of the Super 8's), with at least 2 of those games against teams in lower leagues.
Here is an depressing statistic from the 2014 championship: By the end of the 2014 championship only 5 all-division-1 games were played (excluding the Mayo vs Kerry replay). This number is in keeping with most years.
Secondly, this is actually a shorter season than we currently have if you combined all our different competitions together. But whereas before a county would play 14 or so of those games in front of empty or half-filled stadiums at what we call “league” intensity you would have 14 to 18 games each, all of which would be of vital importance in order to achieve the ultimate goal of an All-Ireland medal, so the intensity and crowds should be there from day one.
The divisional structure will also ensure the so-called weaker counties will have a better chance of winning an All-Ireland or at least becoming contenders. They will at the very least get more Championship games per year and because they will play 10 out of the 14 group games against teams at the same divisional level they will suffer fewer heavy defeats and have a greater chance of reaching an All-Ireland Semi-Final. If nothing else there is a clear and much shorter path to the top -> Win your division (playing against teams at your level) with the bonus of a wildcard game and entry into the playoffs, progress to Division one and improve by playing teams at a higher level week in week out, finish in the top 2 and progress to the playoffs.
I think we are close to a tipping point where the amount of time and effort players in weaker counties have out put into playing for their county is not being met with opportunities to progress and win things. Unless the GAA puts in place some plan to help improve this situation we hare going to see the weaker counties get weaker as counties start to hemorrhage players.
It’s also important to note that for supporters they will only have to make two “long” away trips per year during the regular season, with each of the other 12 games either played at home or in close geographical proximity.
It would also satisfy the club teams out there. We could run the Championship on 18 consecutive weeks, lets say from April to August and leave the other 34 weeks of the year free for club football or we could even stick with the current set-up and spread it out from say March to September and run the club games interspersed alongside it as we currently do.
So what do you think!!? Could this actually work — where do you see the issues arising?— all feedback positive or negative is appreciated — I will take it all on-board and try to improve the proposal using your feedback.
To read part two go here.
I also must give a mention to this Balls.ie article. They have a lot of the same ideas as myself and propose an alternative but equally interesting solution.
