September All-Ireland finals a possibilty

GAA president Jarlath Burns (right) has said a return to September All-Ireland finals is possible, but only if counties were willing to adopt uniformity in their own club championships.

Speaking to GAAGO’s new Ratified discussion forum, in the company of streaming service’s four chief football analysts, Michael Murphy, Marc Ó Sé, Paddy Andrews and Aaron Kernan, Burns said the different formats in counties made it too great a challenge to develop a master fixtures plan that concluded in September.

With uniformity, the GAA could build in gaps in the calendar where club activity could take place, he suggested. Burns also acknowledged that hotel prices for teams and supporters were also an issue for July All-Ireland finals.

“There is a way of achieving that, going right back to September with the two finals,” he said.

“The difficulty is the people who are going to have to compromise are the counties with their own championships. We missed the point with what the problem was. That problem is, if you are organising the Premier League fixtures, very simple, all you have to look out for are UEFA and FIFA fixtures. But if you are organising the GAA master fixtures plan you have to bump into 32 master fixture-making bodies, Higher Education, and multiply that by two as you have hurling and football.

“And then, within that, you have seven or eight different iterations of championships. It is totally ridiculous to think that we can organise a master fixtures plan around that.

“Let’s say we went back to the old way where we have All-Ireland finals back where they were. And what you say is there’s the master fixtures plan.”