The GAA is to discuss split season proposals with counties in the coming weeks with a view to All-Ireland finals being played in July by 2022.
Presuming the radical idea gets a favourable response, motions will be framed for February’s GAA Congress and, if passed, would come into rule the following year.
The split season proposal has been added to the GAA’s Fixture Calendar Review Task Force’s report, which was initially published last November but has been placed on ice due to Covid-19.
Initially, the report didn’t recommend a split season but has now been added after the encouraging feedback that the GAA received for separating club and county activity this year as a result of the pandemic.
"That's the idea of the consultation process,” said task force member Feargal McGill when asked if the GAA is ready for July All-Ireland finals, “pure and simple, to try and establish is the Association ready for it.
“Our job is to outline the implications of it as best we can and so much of what is in this report is about choices. So you can have All-Ireland finals in September if you want but there are certain things you can't have.
“If you want no interference to club fixtures from the inter-county game then this is your way to do it. It's about choices and what people want, in terms of whether the Association is ready or not, we will find out very shortly.”
The split season would mean that much of the year is devoid of inter-county activity and the promotional vehicle that it is.
McGill continued: “From a promotional context, very simply, you leave half the year or you certainly leave five months of the year without any inter-county competition.
“It is very obvious, you only need look at the last couple of weekends, just what inter-county competitions do in terms of promotion of the association, in terms of putting us front and centre in people's minds in this country.
“It is simple as that, it means you are ending your inter-county competitions in mid to late July rather than in early September.
“There are other promotional imperatives for doing it, which is that you potentially give the club better promotion and publicity.”
Within the report are two proposals for an alternative football Championship structure which the committee published in its initial report last year.
One would see the current Allianz League system essentially flipped and adapted into a Championship model, with provincial Leagues taking place earlier in the season instead.
The other proposal is to shift counties from Leinster and Ulster into Munster and Connacht, through a couple of different proposed mechanisms, to make for four provinces of eight teams, each of which would be split into two groups of four on a round robin basis.
Consideration was given to running the club season in the first half of the year though for various reasons, it wasn’t pursued.
McGill explained: “I think clubs would have had a difficulty having to accept playing county finals at the end of April or at beginning of May, which would have been a necessity if you flipped it and did it the other way round. I think that was probably the main concern.”
Meanwhile, despite the calendar being radically altered, the All-Ireland club finals would still take place in January, as happened this year for the first time, rather than being played pre-Christmas.
McGill added: “We said very clearly the last time that the preference would be to have everything played in the calendar year, but we also said very clearly that we didn’t really think that was practical at this moment in time.
“That’s what we say in the original report and we stick by that. It’s desirable but we’re just not sure it’s practical yet, and I think an awful lot of these changes that we’re recommending need to bed in first before we can start tackling that.”
