THE CLUB PLAYERS Association (CPA) has labelled the GAA’s latest attempts to reform the fixtures calendar as “inadequate.”
Croke Park will host a special congress in September to push through changes to the All-Ireland SHC, while there are seven motions in total down for discussion with the view to ease the pressure on club fixtures.
In a statement released by the CPA, Micheál Briody criticised the agenda and said it falls “far short of what is required.”
He wrote: “There are seven motions in total. We had hoped for one motion. A bold, brave and definitive motion that would cut through the short term planning and provide for a national fixtures plan for club and county.”
“The CPA presented Croke Park with a national fixture plan some months back that showed how club and county can co-exist.
“We pointed out that three critical elements are needed to achieve this harmony.
- April designated as a club only month
- Club All Irelands played in a calendar year
- December a month of downtime and rest for all players.
“Why aren’t these being discussed at Central Council or presented in a national strategy? These are issues that benefit the club player in a meaningful way and relate directly to the GAA’s core purpose.
“Is it arrogance, a lack of concern for club players, or fear of real meaningful change that prevents our Association from grasping the seriousness of the issues that we face and addressing these fundamental problems?”
“We are deeply concerned at the direction we are taking as an association with a growing imbalance between the income-generating big business wing of the GAA, directed and managed by paid officials, and the volunteer club ethos at local community level. The CPA is firmly in the latter category.”
GAA don’t care about anything but the airgead
The CPA proposals are not realistic. The month of April for Club fixtures? 1. It’s right in the business end of the National leagues. 2. Clubs aren’t and shouldn’t be ready for championship at that time of year. The finals are not until October.
The club finals work well on St Patricks day. It gives them the publicity and spotlight that they deserve. The alternative as proposed is to play them in late November/December. That’s not acceptable imo.
@Tim Dawson: club leagues should be started in early/mid February and ran off every week (or pretty much every week) which would have most leagues ran off by the end of April. Semi finals and finals to be ran off and completed by May/June. Club championships can then be started in April, not sure why you think this is too early as every club will be training since January? Not sure why if you start a champing April you couldn’t have it completed early August at the latest, which would allow provincials and all ireland series played out before the end of October.
Have a rigid fixture list in place and lose this nonsense of having 3/4 week gaps between games.
@Robert Callaghan: hem! Because there is also the intercounty league and championship and clubs will not play without their county players. The national league is played in April. That’s why you can’t have club championship then. Or are we now talking about punishing the county player for being better and flogging them to death?
@Tim Dawson: grand, start it in May then, or move National Leagues to March and get rid of the O’Byrne/McKenna cup preseason comps to freely time. The General point being that we have less gaps between games and a rigid calendar. The whole thing from intercounty down needs to be restructured because it’s broken.
Are you happy then to leave the fixture system the way it is and ignore the overwhelming opinion of club players? For what, because the club championship final has to be played on St. Patrick’s Days because it always has?