Congress approves football championship revamp

The GAA Congress has voted decisively to back proposed changes to the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship format.

Almost 93% of delegates in Donegal Town support the move which will see the removal of the round-robin stage of the football championship.

The round-robin stage has been criticised for lacking jeopardy and drama. Currently, 24 matches are played across four, four-team groups to eliminate just four teams.

Under the new structure which will be in place from 2026-28, 16 teams will still battle for the Sam Maguire Cup.

They will be the eight provincial finalists, the Tailteann Cup winners from the previous season, with the remainder the highest ranked teams in the Allianz Football League who have not already clinched spots.

Round one will see the eight provincial finalists drawn against the other eight teams.

The winners from the round one games will then meet in four games, with the victors from those contests going through directly to the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

The first-round losers will then be drawn to play four fixtures and the four winners from those contests going on to play the four teams beaten in the second round of games.

The four winners of those contests will progress to the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

The first of Saturday’s motions saw a move to clarify the hurling handpass heavily defeated.

The Tipperary motion called for a new rule where players would no longer be able to handpass using the same hand they are holding the sliotar.

This was because of the widespread view that players are getting away with widespread illegal handpasses in the modern game.

However, the motion was heavily defeated as it received only 32.4% support – well short of the two-thirds majority required for a rule change.

A motion proposing that, in order to play inter-county championship football, a player must have played in four club league games in the same calendar year, was eventually withdrawn after a long debate.

Cork GAA chief executive Kevin O’Donovan described the motion as “unworkable and unenforceable” although this was rejected by the motion’s primary advocate former Dublin player Noel McCaffrey, who was speaking on behalf of the Clontarf club who submitted the motion.

GAA president Jarlath Burns then suggested that McCaffrey should withdraw the motion with a view to amending it for next year’s Congress and this plan was then agreed.