TAKE CONTROL
Griffin: GAA must be firm on club fixtures
FORMER Wexford AllIreland winning manager Liam Griffin has called on Croke Park to take charge of the fixtures crisis.
The Club Players Association (CPA) kept the pressure up on the GAA bosses yesterday, issuing a statement claiming it would amount to ‘sacrilege’ if counties do not fully exploit the 11-week window created for playing club championships.
However, at a management meeting tomorrow (Wednesday), Wexford County Board is expected to confirm the format of its club hurling championship, which it aims to complete inside five weeks.
Griffin, a member of the CPA executive, said the time had come for the GAA to take charge of the county/club debate by central rule, rather ‘32 republics’ legislating for themselves.
‘We can’t have 32 republics operating and hope that while this is happening club players are going to get a fair and consistent programme,’ said Griffin, who warned that the GAA could no longer afford to put the fixtures issues on the long finger.
‘This is a massive issue but it is not an insurmountable one and it highlights the need that we have a proper structure in place for 2021.
‘We can’t come along next year and say “we can’t do anything this year, we will have to wait until Congress next year”.
‘The last time I met (GAA president) John Horan, I said to him that the man who was 27 when we were talking about this in 2015 is now 32 and we still
have not made one ounce of progress,’ Griffin told Sportsmail. And Griffin said the core problem remained the amount of time being granted to county managers to work with their teams. ‘If you compare it to rugby and the dynamic that works between the provinces and the national team, the national team does not get the same amount of time that is afforded to county managers to get teams ready. ‘We don’t need this savage amount of time to get county teams ready. If we can get clubs and counties coordinated by getting a system that accommodates both and there are ways that can look at that but what we really need is the goodwill to look and find these solutions,’ added Griffin. And CPA chairman Micheál Briody, who last week called for a rule that would see counties thrown out of the Championship if found to be in breach of the club-only window, warned against running off county championships in speedy fashion. ‘We must respect the integrity of our club competitions and this means using the time available in the best possible way,’ Briody said. ‘Suggestions of running of championships in blitz format or shrunk to a very tight time-frame to enable county preparations are sacrilege and will have long-lasting implications,’ added Briody. The CPA held its AGM at the weekend with Laois dual star Cahir Healy elected to its executive. ‘I am proud to play for Laois but I still don’t feel county players should be strangers in their own clubs which I feel is what is happening all over the country,’ said Healy.