Murphy castigates football proposals
GAA
by Jim O’Sullivan
THERE can be no justification for ‘removing’ teams from their provincial championships! That’s the view of Ulster Chairman Danny Murphy, who revealed yesterday that he had deliberately stayed away from the launch of the Football Development Committee report in Croke Park the night before. "I think it is an absolute joke that a provincial council would exclude any of its counties from the provincial championship,’’ he said. While welcoming the proposal to provide more high profile games for counties, Mr. Murphy expressed serious concern about the impact the changed structure would have on clubs and especially dual clubs. Additionally, he also questioned the accuracy of the financial projections.
"You have got my views and, as I said to several people, I may get into ‘bother,’ but, you asked me a question why I was not there,’’ he commented.
Elaborating, he felt it was improper that the ‘administrative levels of the Association national and provincial had not been consulted, were not given a prior opportunity to ‘discuss the ramifications’ of the report and had ‘no input whatsoever.’ "Under rule, Coiste Bainistí Management Committee) should have been appraised of this document and given an opportunity to hear their thinking before it went public, and that certainly did not happen.
"I was not going to lend any tacit or any implied support to this document by being present, given the contempt that they treated us with.’’ Incidentally, the other three provincial chairmen attended the launch although Connacht Chairman Phelim Murphy, regarded as a ‘hurling’ man, made no input as did the Association President, Joe McDonagh, President elect Sean McCague and Director General Liam Mulvihill. Mr. McDonagh said afterwards that he had ‘encouraged by the response, which was largely positive.
Mr. Murphy said he welcomed the proposal to increase the number of games for counties, but, he feels that their earning potential have been ‘over embellished.’ "Anyone looking at the current income of the National League £1.3m.) would have to expect a four fold increase on the number of people paying through the turnstiles. Certainly the ‘B’ championship and quite an amount of matches in the ‘A’ championship will not have such earning potential.
"I believe there are financial benefits if this competition works the way they are predicting. But, given that the championship has the drama, has the winner and the loser and has what one might call ‘cross boundary’ support, I just wonder if those sort of crowd attendances would be there in the future.
"I also wonder if live games, played in front of five or six thousand people, will in any way enamour our games to the young people of the country and establish an appeal which the current ‘live’ championship programme has done for the last few years.’’
Mr. Murphy is particularly strong in his opposition to the type of ‘seeding’ proposed, whereby two counties each from Munster, Ulster and Connacht along with London and New York, who participated last year) and five from Leinster, will be excluded from the ‘A’ championship.
"We would have to decide which two counties would play in the ‘B’ championship and, given the total commitment of the Ulster counties to the championship in the years gone past, very few of them have not been close to winning, or have not won. It’s a fact that seven of the nine counties have won the Ulster championship in the last twelve years. Now, we may be asking some of those counties not to play in our championship.’’ While accepting that Antrim have not won a game for 17 years, he pointed out that have been improving and actually ‘pushed’ Down hard in this year’s championship. Down themselves had played in only one final prior to 1959, and that was the year they won the title for the first time. "It’s not a modern phenomenon that teams do not win in the championship,’’ he added.
He also remarked that if the proposed structure had been in use in 1991, Down would not have won the All Ireland because they finished at the bottom of their section in the league.
"What we are faced with, in this document, is an enormous number of games, some of which will engender championship fervour, some of which will certainly not. I would be concerned that we would end up with more matches and less public appeal, in place of quite a high profile championship!
"If the National League was the deficient one and if it needed to be played in better weather and in a different format, than the League was the one they should put their mind to. I wonder what defect they found with the championship.
"I also believe that the proposals, as put, pose major questions for the clubs. I believe the clubs will be forced, regardless of what is being presented, into a situation where they will play a lot of matches in the March to July period without county players or play no matches.
"I also feel that the dual clubs of our Association will have the biggest nightmare of all. Those clubs, I feel, will be decimated by the demands for players to play hurling and football at county level on successive Sundays’’
© The Examiner, 1999