THE GAA HIERARCHY are hopeful of drawing up a new proposal to reform the All-Ireland SFC in time for the 2023 season.
However, they are unsure if a new proposal can be turned around in time to go up at Congress next February.
Despite receiving the public backing of president Larry McCarthy, director-general Tom Ryan, the GPA and ex-president John Horan, Proposal B was defeated at Special Congress today.
The league-based championship proposal fell 9.4% shy of the 60% required to be carried after receiving heavy opposition from Ulster and the provincial councils.
While there was a consensus that change to the football structure is needed, McCarthy and Ryan were noncommittal on the prospect of a new format going up for vote at Congress early next year.
“Having said during the week that I hoped we’d be bold, based on the result, for me, we weren’t bold enough in terms of it didn’t pass,” said McCarthy.
“But having said that we’re looking forward to a pretty altered landscape anyway for the championship in 2021.
“I expect that we will revisit this very, very quickly,” he stated.
“I’m not so sure we’ll have something for February but there’s a majority of change in the majority and every speaker said they’d like change. In a lot of cases it just wasn’t the change that was proposed, but there’s certainly a mandate there for change.
“We will contemplate and see how we will bring forward some alternatives in terms of the options that are put on the table.
“I think everyone who spoke against it prefaced their remark by saying we want change, we just don’t like this change. And we also got 50.6% of people looking for change, so that would appear to me to be a huge mandate to push on.”
Carlow native Ryan didn’t rule out the possibility of bringing a refined proposal to Congress in February or a Special Congress later in the year, which would see the 2023 All-Ireland SFC revamped.
“It’s a challenge, there’s no point saying otherwise. But is it possible to do (by February)? Of course it is. As we went through this process there were other options considered as part of it.
“There are plenty of other permutations but it’s not quite the same as going back to a blank sheet of paper. There’s still a huge amount of value in all of the work and thought went into it,” Ryan continued.
“To the extent that it’s possible to expedite something from where we are today, we’re not in a bad position. But there’s no point in saying that it’s straightforward either there’s a fair bit of work ahead of us.
“But half of the people in the room and hopefully that means half the people in the country supported what was specifically in front of them today.
“Another positive from today is that we know what the sticking points are. I think there’s a core of an idea there and acceptance that there’s a momentum and will to change.
“And we know what the tricky bits are around the edge of that. The provincial championships and where they fit into the scheme of things is clearly one. We’ll have to acknowledge that.”
Eight Ulster county delegates spoke against the proposal, in addition to opposition from Mayo, Galway and Kerry.
Offaly chairman Michael Duignan was the sole representative from a Leinster county to speak in favour of the proposal in Croke Park.
McCarthy accepted that the provincial championships remain the biggest obstacle to change.
“If you think about the eight or nine people who spoke against it, all essentially supported their own provincial championship. So I think that would suggest it has to have a central role somehow. Don’t ask me what that role is.
“I guess one of the suggestions floated early was that there should be some link between the proposed championship (presume he means provincial?) back into All-Ireland championship in the summer.
“I must say I don’t know how you’d do that but that seems to be a desire,” McCarthy added.
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