Cash would narrow gap to big boys — Hyland
LEITRIM manager Terry Hyland insists the GAA should invest in football’s weaker counties and not just ‘box them off’ in a second-tier championship.
‘We should use resources to elevate standards rather than just focus on changing competition format,’ said Hyland, as football’s minnows steel themselves for a debate that could see a B championship in place by 2021.
The proposal, as revealed by GAA president John Horan this week, is still in its embryonic stage but would facilitate every team entering the All-Ireland SFC through the provincial system.
However in the event of the Division 3 and 4 counties failing to reach a provincial final, they would be denied entry to the race for Sam Maguire and would instead enter a second-tier competition.
Hyland, who has taken over the 29th-ranked team (based on Allianz League position) in the game, dismissed the proposal as an answer to football’s lop-sided landscape. He believes that investing resources, rather coming up with new competition formats, is the only way to bridge the chasm which now exists between the games ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.
‘It is easy to put someone in a box and say they are not fit to compete but what are they doing to bring them up and help them to compete?’ asked Hyland yesterday.
‘And by putting them in a different competition and saying if you win that you can compete with the big boys next year misses the point that there will always be Division 3 and 4 counties.
‘So the question that we should be addressing is how do we bring them along,’ added the former Cavan boss.
The disparity in resources between the biggest and smallest is there to be seen in official GAA figures — Dublin have received €16.6 million in coaching and development funding since 2007 while, in that same period, Leitrim received just over €560,000.
Hyland is adamant that cash is key to ensuring a more level playing field in the future.
‘When you look at the budgets the smaller counties have to work with. A Division 1 team that is going to compete at All-Ireland level is going to cost €1.2m, while a Division 3 or 4 team will never even aspire to raising that kind of money,’ he added.
‘My argument is small can still be strong if it is run and structured properly, but small can’t get strong on their own because they don’t have the resources, the revenue streams, or sheer numbers to get better.
‘For example, in Leitrim they had just one full-time coach to go around to schools, although this year they have got two extra.
‘If you have only one coach in a county, how are they going to make their underage structure and coaches better 10 years down the line if they don’t have those resources? I am not talking about throwing money at senior teams, but I am talking about the longterm development of standards in counties.’
While the new proposal is expected to be more palatable than the last effort by GAA chiefs to introduce a second-tiered competition, which saw their proposal to limit a B championship to Division 4 teams withdrawn at the 2016 Congress, it is still likely to face some opposition.
Hyland claimed that the mindset behind the motion is to ensure the All-Ireland series eliminates the kind of results which saw Waterford lose by 27 points to Monaghan this summer, but argues that it addressing the symptom rather than the problem.
‘What it means is that the Division 4 teams do not play in the qualifiers so that they don’t meet a Kerry or Mayo and get beaten by 25 points so that keeps that quiet, and because they are not getting hammered that is making it better.
‘But are we not better putting resources into ensuring that instead of getting beaten by 25 points, they can bring it back to 15, then 10 points, then five points, ensuring that instead of boxing these counties away, we are making them better.’