GREEN LIGHT
Central Council to decide on reform plans today and Kelly admits ‘game bored me’
EXCLUSIVE BY Karl O’kane TALK about subliminal messages — Green for go.
Today, the GAA’S Central Council will decide which, if any, of two proposals for potentially seismic reform of county football - Green or Red - will go before annual Congress next month.
With the GPA and Munster Chairman Ger Ryan coming out in favour of the ‘Green Proposal,’ it is likely to get the green light.
Former GAA President Sean Kelly came up with the original version of the plan a decade ago.
“I don’t think anybody from the GAA will be getting in touch to say, ‘Well done Sean, we are delighted. You came up with the proposal. Thanks very much but don’t be giving out any more.’”
Kelly, a Fine Gael MEP, continued: “It’s taken 10 years. Football suffered very badly because of the fact hurling improved so much. 30 years ago the hurling final rarely filled Croke Park.
“People started to compare the products. In fairness, they got fed up with the style of football being played. They got fed up with the routs taking place in game after game after game.
“Including myself, I have to say, I lost interest for a while.
“It just annoyed me to be going to matches when I knew a team was going to be trounced by 20 or 30 or 40 points and no-one was doing anything about it.
“Patting them on the head, ‘Well done lads, you performed great. You are keeping our game alive. Keep it up. Come back in next year and we’ll hammer the shit out of you and tell you the same thing.’
“The style of football was bad for a while. It’s better now. I think this (Green
Proposal) will really make it. It will be far more competitive.
“It will be meaningful for the weaker counties and the round robin with the home and away - no neutral venues - will give a fantastic buzz all around the country.”
The ‘Green Proposal’ would see the League stay the same and be played from January to April.
The provincials would then be run over five weeks in April and May, with the Championship consisting of four groups of four for the All-ireland and four groups of four for the Tailteann Cup.
The eight provincial finalists would be the top two seeds in each of the four All-ireland Championship groups, with the other eight teams determined by league placings.
Group winners would go straight into the All-ireland quarter-finals, with the second placed teams playing off against the third placed teams in another group in preliminary quarter-finals.
Kelly doesn’t like the final element of the plan: “You could get a lot of poor games or dead rubbers.”
He feels three teams coming out of a group of four dilutes the Championship. Kelly favours a far more radical plan of just the top side in each group going straight to the Allireland semi-final, with no quarter-finals or
preliminary round.
“I think you’d see the Dublins and Kerrys coming out against that,” he says. “They might have to go up to Clones and win in a finalround game to stay in, but that would be the beauty of it. The group games would all be like knockout Championship games.”
Kelly was delighted to see 70 per cent of inter-county football squads - after straw polls - this week back the ‘Green Proposal.’
“Fair play to them,” he said. “I was very pleased with the way they spoke at Special Congress. They showed a little bit of spunk, and knowledge and knowhow that might have been missing in the past.
“I thought Tom Parsons came across very well — strong and brave. You know when a fella is talking if he’s talking with conviction and he’s prepared to stand up for people and knows his facts.”