THE DUBLIN SENIOR club football championship could be set for a radical shake-up from next season, including a ‘top tier’ round robin for the best 16 clubs in the county.
Dublin’s Competition Control Committee this evening released details of the new format which will be voted on by club delegates next month.
Under the proposal the current ‘one and done’ knockout format would be scrapped in favour of a new SFC 1 competition featuring 16 teams, divided into four groups of four, with the top two teams in each group progressing to an open draw for the county quarter-finals.
The bottom team in each of the four groups will go into an open draw for the relegation semi-finals and a final, with the loser dropping down to the SFC 2 competition.
SFC 2 will follow the same format of four groups of four, with the winner promoted to SFC 1 for the following season, and the loser relegated to intermediate football.
Clubs will be selected for either SFC 1 or 2 based on their results over the previous five seasons, 2013-2017, with consideration given to clubs who have not reached a five-year history.
Semi-finalists will also be seeded for the following year’s first round draw where appropriate, the CCC explained.
Similar reforms are also planned for the intermediate and junior championships, with the winners of those competitions representing Dublin in their respective Leinster campaigns.
But clubs whose first team are competing in either the senior or intermediate championship will field their second and subsequent teams in a separate “all-county” intermediate or junior competition.
“It is generally accepted that our current one chance knockout system of football championship is not best suited to the needs of our players or clubs,” the CCC’s proposal document said.
“There is also a view, among smaller clubs especially, that they are not getting a fair chance, by having to compete against second or third teams from bigger clubs in their efforts to achieve championship success or the right to represent Dublin in the Leinster/All-Ireland Intermediate or Junior Club Championships.
“CCC is of the belief that these proposed changes will give the club player more quality and meaningful games and will raise the ambition of his club of achieving success,” it added.
“Clubs can now plan for competition in the belief that their opponents will be of [a] standard similar to their own and will approach games in a more confident mindset.
“Supporters will have a wider choice of attractive games to choose from and media attention will be intensified around our fixtures.”
Read the proposal document in full here >
