Format decided for the 2020 TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Football Championships

THE formats for the 2020 TG4 All-Ireland Junior, Intermediate and Senior Ladies Football Championships have been ratified – and the draws will take place on Tuesday evening, June 30.

The 2020 Senior Championship will be contested by 12 counties – with four groups of three teams each set to battle it out in the round-robin stages.

The top team in each group will progress straight through to the TG4 All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-finals.

The 2019 semi-finalists, namely Champions Dublin, runners-up Galway, and Cork and Mayo, will be seeded and placed in separate round-robin groups.

An open draw will then determine who will join those four teams in the various pools.

The 2020 TG4 All-Ireland Intermediate Championship will be contested by 13 counties – and will also be run off on a round-robin format to determine the four semi-finalists.

There will be three groups of three teams, and one group of four, in the qualifier phase, with the top team in each group progressing to the last four of the competition.

Westmeath, who were relegated from the TG4 Senior Championship in 2019, are one of the seeded teams, along with Meath, the 2019 Intermediate Championship runners-up, and last year’s beaten semi-finalists Roscommon and Sligo.

It is envisaged that each Championship will be played off over seven weekends, with a two-week break between the conclusion of the group phases and the All-Ireland semi-finals, and a further two-week break between the semi-finals and Finals.

The dates for the round-robin fixtures, and the All-Ireland semi-finals and Finals, will be agreed upon and circulated in due course.

CAMOGIE MEANWHILE, the All-Ireland Camogie Championships will take place between October and December, with exact dates yet to be confirmed.

However, the National Leagues have been cancelled due to scheduling constraints.

A final format for the competition has yet to be decided by the Camogie Association, but will begin on a round-robin basis before proceeding to the knockout rounds.

There will be no automatic promotion or relegation for the 2020 Championship.

As well as the leagues being cancelled, the All-Ireland Minor Championships have also been shelved for this year. However, minor competitions will be played on a provincial basis later this year.

On the club front, the 2020-21 All-Ireland Club Championships will go ahead as normal but with a revision to the calendar for the 2021 phase of the competition.