Gaelic football fans suffer in silence as GAAGO strikes its biggest blow yet

None of the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-finals will be shown on free to air television and instead they are all behind the much despised GAAGO paywall.

Remember the hullabaloo last month when Cork hurlers’ matches in the Munster hurling championship matches were shown behind the pay wall.

The new Taoiseach Simon Harris – who scarcely ever mentioned sport during the political career until then – as well as the Tánaiste Micheál Martin, who ought to have understood the issues better, were only too happy to use the GAAGO issue as a punch bag.

But then there was an election in the offering.

What’s happening this weekend is arguably a far bigger injustice but the election is over and the politicians have moved on.

Still, it is curious there has been no outcry from the football community that not even one of the four most significant football championship games played so far this year will be shown on free to air television.

My own theory is that the nation’s football fans haven’t realised the games are behind a paywall. They will get a nasty surprise when they turn on RTE on Sunday and discover the only Gaelic football matches on offer are the Tailteann Cup semi-finals.

Due to the virtual media black out which team managements impose these days there has been very little coverage of the four games in the media all week.

All in all it has been another bad week for the GAA.

All the faultlines associated with the split season and experimental format for the All-Ireland football championship converged to create a perfect storm.

Let’s make a bold prediction: Next month’s All-Ireland football and hurling finals will be the last to be played in July.

Interestingly former Wexford manager Liam Griffin, who was a member of the Club Players’ Association executive, revealed in an interview in the Irish Examiner that the CPA would have been content to move the All-Ireland finals to August. He suggested the Gaelic Players’ Association (GPA) wanted a July end to the championship.

What has been forgotten is that pre-Covid the All-Ireland finals had already been brought forward. The 2019 football final was played on September 1. It actually went to a replay which was played two weeks later.

Don’t be surprised if the 2025 All-Ireland hurling and football finals are played on August 24 and August 31, respectively.

The reality is that the majority of county championships, even in dual counties, don’t start until September anyway.

GAA president Jarlath Burns made an interesting point during an interview on Morning Ireland when he pointed out that compromise was needed at both county and club level.

Championships work best when there is an element of jeopardy involved and too many county championships are now being organised on long-winded league formats.

As for the ill-fated Sam Maguire round-robin series, that will be reformed in time for the 2025 championship as the current system isn’t working.

For example, if defending league champions Derry rediscover their mojo on Saturday night and knock out Mayo they will be into the last eight of the All-Ireland series despite winning just two games. In contrast, Mayo’s season will be over even though they featured in a provincial final and they were unbeaten in the group stages of the Sam Maguire series.

It would be even more farcical if Monaghan were to beat Galway. The Ulster side have won once since January whereas Galway are the Connacht champions and won two of their games in the Sam Maguire round robin.

Until the GAA are willing to grasp the nettle and flip the provincial championships and the National Football League the format of the All-Ireland will remain a bit of a mess.

But it will be different in 2025. The most likely change will see the 16 teams who qualify for the Sam Maguire series playing each other (Round 1) with the eight winners then playing off (Round 2) to decide which four counties secure direct entry into the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

Crucially all the beaten teams will get a second chance. The eight Round 1 losers will play off with the four winners meeting the four losers from Round 2 in what would effectively be preliminary All-Ireland quarter-finals.

There are four less games than in the current format but more importantly there would be an element of jeopardy in every game.

Here’s to a better format and a new look split season in 2025.