Pat Spillane had criticised the decision not to reinstate the pre-season inter-county competitions for 2025.

A proposal from Cavan to reverse the decision to suspend January tournaments such as the Dr McKenna Cup, O'Byrne Cup, McGrath Cup and FBD Connacht League was defeated at last Saturday’s Central Council meeting, meaning the Football Review Committee’s rule enhancements won’t now be trialled until the Allianz League.

While welcoming many of the new rules which were road-tested in the recent inter-provincial series at Croke Park, the Kerry great pointed out in the Sunday World: “The real test will come in competitive encounters. That’s why the pre-season competitions should have been restored, to allow more testing and give counties time to acclimatise.

“The National Football League is a major competition for a lot of counties. It will determine if some counties are in the championship or not. It is unfair to ask counties to take part in a game with rules that have not been road-tested in a competitive match.

“Think of how much extra crowd interest they will get from those games if the pre-seasons were restored. It will generate more useful revenue as well.”

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