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Football Format Changes Discussion

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I agree with Edu's suggestion. The drawback though is that there are probably not enough weekends in the split season schedule. The league has a balanced format and is unlikely to change any time soon. The league has 8 weekends and 2 rest weekends. The provincial championships require 6 weekends and ideally there should be a week off after league finals. In Jarlath Burns' favoured 1, 2A & 2B, 3, QF, SF and final format, rounds 2, 3 and QFs will probably have to be on consecutive weekends.
The elephant in the room is the provincial open draw. Sligo beating London and New York to qualify for the All-Ireland is not a good look. It devalues qualification. Clare beating Tipperary or Waterford to qualify for the All-Ireland is not a good look either. Sligo and Clare are not earning the respect of their own people for getting through lopsided draws. There is reasonable respect for a Westmeath, Meath or Down qualifying for the All Ireland after Tailteann success.

legendzxix (Kerry) - Posts: 8323 - 29/11/2024 23:48:42    2581737

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Replying To edu:  "ALTERNATIVE 16 TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP SET UP

This is just an alternative way of scheduling the fixtures for the 16 teams that currently qualify for the A.I.C. It is based on how UEFA are now organizing their 3 club competitions

Rather than running it on 4 groups of 4 [as is the case currently
it is run on one single League of 16 teams with each team having 4 games [up from 3 in the groups]. Each team will have 2 home and 2 away games.

Currently for the group stage draw the teams are put into 4 pots of 4 as follows-It wud be the same in 16 Team League
POT 1--------- 4 Provincial Champions
POT 2----------4 Provincial Runners Up
POT 3----------4 Highest League
POT 4-----------Next 4 Highest League

For the 4 game schedule each team is drawn to play one team from each pot.
In Round 1 each team would play a team from their own pot followed by 1 team from the other 3 pots in the subsequent in 3 rounds

When the Provincial Champions are meeting in Round 1- a rotational pairing could be in place as used to be in place for the A.I.C Semi Finals in the pre qualifier days. In the 140 year history of the G.A.A there has never being a meeting of Kerry and Dublin in the A.I.C in Kerry.

How many teams to qualify for the K.O stages?
12 -------Too many
8 ------- Too few
10 ------- just about right

Top 6 in 16 Team Table------- Directly to Q.F
7 to 10 in 16 Team Table------ Into P.Q.F ------- 7 home v 10 and 8 home v 9

From Q.F onwards highest ranked team from 16 Team Table plays the remaining lowest ranked team and so on.
It means the teams finishing First and Second in Table can not meet until the Final.

It would also be very beneficial if the 4 Q.F rather than being played in Croke Park were home games for the teams finishing in the top 4 positions in the Table. Probably be one Q.F game in Croke Park anyways.[If Dublin finish in Top 4]"]@edu (Mayo) - Posts: 64 - 29/11/2024 11:34:05

Some similarities with mine - 2 tiers of 16.
You have a 4-game phase, so presumably your league would be played separately?

I combine them - 12 matches (3 from each pot) - with Prov ties 'doubling up'/already deciding some of the 12.
While UEFA randomizes opponents via computer software, I keep groups for ease of fixture construction only.

Top 8 to AFL-style playoffs
(1-4 two-chance PSFs; 5-8 KO PQFs)

9-20 to AI Shield KO (9-12 stay up & get PQF byes; 17-20 host 16-13 in PQFs & 4 winners go/stay up)

21-28 to AI Plate KO QFs (all 8 stay down, but can compete for a 'top 4, 17-20' Shield berth the next year)
29-32 do not advance.

omahant (USA) - Posts: 2908 - 30/11/2024 02:17:18    2581741

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A tiered provincial group stage is the best option. All county championships have a tiered structure. The provincial championships currently do not have a qualifying bar. County championships have a qualifying bar for intermediate and senior.
A tiered provincial structure can allow for straight knockout in the All Ireland series.

legendzxix (Kerry) - Posts: 8323 - 01/12/2024 08:42:04    2581813

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Replying To legendzxix:  "I agree with Edu's suggestion. The drawback though is that there are probably not enough weekends in the split season schedule. The league has a balanced format and is unlikely to change any time soon. The league has 8 weekends and 2 rest weekends. The provincial championships require 6 weekends and ideally there should be a week off after league finals. In Jarlath Burns' favoured 1, 2A & 2B, 3, QF, SF and final format, rounds 2, 3 and QFs will probably have to be on consecutive weekends.
The elephant in the room is the provincial open draw. Sligo beating London and New York to qualify for the All-Ireland is not a good look. It devalues qualification. Clare beating Tipperary or Waterford to qualify for the All-Ireland is not a good look either. Sligo and Clare are not earning the respect of their own people for getting through lopsided draws. There is reasonable respect for a Westmeath, Meath or Down qualifying for the All Ireland after Tailteann success."
Not enough weekends in the season? And yet in mid season teams losing early in the Provincial Championships will wait anything from 4 up to in extreme cases 7 weeks for their next Championship game. This year Westmeath lost in Leinster on April 7 and played their 1st game in the A.I.C on May 25. In 2023 Cork lost in Munster on April 9 and played their 1st A.I.C game on May 27 [7 weeks in both cases].That is totally unbalanced surely?

The question is? ----is this recognized as being an issue and if so what will happen.
Will it be ? [a] nothing it is fine as it is.
there will be some sort of attempt made to deal with it.
[c] it will definitely be addressed.

One rather radical solution [for the GAA anyway] would be to run the League and the Provincial Championships concurrently as happens in other sports. Here in Ireland the FAI run the League and Cup simultaneously along with some clubs also partaking in European competitions .

Is there any good reason why this could not be even considered ? No team would go more than 3 weeks at maximum without a competitive game.

It must be remembered that 95 % of delegates voted for this current set up back in 2022 and yet a big majority of people now want some sort of change to the 3 game group stage and hardly a mention of the big gaps in some teams game schedule as mentioned above

As far as some lower division teams benefiting from lop sided Provincial draws and getting to Finals and thus qualifying for the A.I.C.--Is it really a benefit to those teams ? Take Clare for example who qualified for the last 2 A.I.C group stages and look odds to do the same next year which puts them on the same side of the draw as Tipperary and Waterford. It must be acknowledged that did beat Cork last year in Munster. Anyways in the group stages they lost all 6 games with a hefty minus scoring difference. Surely participating in the Tailteann Cup would be more advantageous with a genuine chance of at least getting to the Semi Finals and the caveat of a Croke Park game[ or 2] and live national T.V coverage

As it is Clare could qualify for next years A.I.C group stage by winning Division 3 but could also lose out by doing the same thing. This would happen if they were to lose to Waterford/Tipperary in the Munster Semi Final and another D3/D4 division team [or is it 2? ] [it is a bit complex] were to reach any of the other 3 Provincial Finals. How ironic would that be?

edu (Mayo) - Posts: 65 - 01/12/2024 18:15:42    2581897

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I combine League & Prov KO - 12 matches (3 from each pot) - with Prov ties 'doubling up' as some of the 12 to reduce fixtures.

While UEFA randomizes opponents via computer software, I keep groups for ease of fixture construction only.

I decide the 12 matches by having '4 groups of 4' drawn AFTER Prov QFs are completed.
I do this to reduce a 15-match round robin to 12 - 'avoid own', play other 12.
This can only be done by knowing the SF 4, which need to be drawn one to each group to preserve 'crossover' SFs & Final.

With 4 Prelims & 12 QFs played the first two weeks of Feb, 8 SFs & 4 Finals could be played later - end of Apr (SFs) and last two weeks of May (Finals).

omahant (USA) - Posts: 2908 - 01/12/2024 20:17:24    2581930

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With Burn's preferred old Christy Ring format, I'd guess the preliminary quarter finals (Round 3) will be on the weekend before the quarter-finals. This way GAAGO will have the Round 3 games on the Saturday, with RTE showing the hurling quarter finals on the Sunday.
The Round 3 winners will probably wind up playing on three consecutive weekends. TV scheduling will be a big reason for that but they won't be saying that publicly!

legendzxix (Kerry) - Posts: 8323 - 01/12/2024 20:59:11    2581944

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Replying To legendzxix:  "With Burn's preferred old Christy Ring format, I'd guess the preliminary quarter finals (Round 3) will be on the weekend before the quarter-finals. This way GAAGO will have the Round 3 games on the Saturday, with RTE showing the hurling quarter finals on the Sunday.
The Round 3 winners will probably wind up playing on three consecutive weekends. TV scheduling will be a big reason for that but they won't be saying that publicly!"
I don't mind two consecutive wkds, but three is a bit much. My schedule, based on my two tiers of 16, combined League-Championship:

CALENDAR
Week Activity
-2 (mid Jan) Start of '2-3 game' Pre-Season
0 (end of Jan) End of Pre-Season Warm-Up

1 (start of Feb) Prov SFC Prelim Rd
2 Prov SFC QFs

2 (after QFs) AILC Draw (2 tiers of 4x4 or 6,5,5)
2 (after Draw) Prelim/QF results to league tables?
3 Bye Week

4 (end of Feb) Start of Regular Season
12 (end of Apr) Rd includes all 8 Prov SFs
16 & 17 (end of May) Rds include 4 Prov Finals
20 Last Regular Season Rd
21 (end of June) Bye Week

22 AIC PSFs/PQFs, AI Shield PQFs & AI Plate QFs
23 AIC QFs & AI Shield QFs
24 AI Plate SFs
25 (end of July) AIC SFs & AI Shield SFs
26 AI Plate Final
27 (2nd week of Aug) AIC Final & AI Shield Final

omahant (USA) - Posts: 2908 - 02/12/2024 00:48:21    2581969

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Park all the discussions lads, because this weekend must have shown everyone is that if the perfect solution exists for the ruleset or format but it doesn't come from a small group of chosen ones then it won't happen. Outside input is unnecessary and they do not want to hear it.

In the GAA we are only allowed to do three things:

1. Ignore what's broken

2. Break what's working

3. Go to mass

SurelyToGod (Donegal) - Posts: 438 - 02/12/2024 10:33:14    2581994

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Replying To SurelyToGod:  "Park all the discussions lads, because this weekend must have shown everyone is that if the perfect solution exists for the ruleset or format but it doesn't come from a small group of chosen ones then it won't happen. Outside input is unnecessary and they do not want to hear it.

In the GAA we are only allowed to do three things:

1. Ignore what's broken

2. Break what's working

3. Go to mass"
All three are now waning - one of them significantly more than the others.

omahant (USA) - Posts: 2908 - 02/12/2024 12:43:27    2582026

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Replying To SurelyToGod:  "Park all the discussions lads, because this weekend must have shown everyone is that if the perfect solution exists for the ruleset or format but it doesn't come from a small group of chosen ones then it won't happen. Outside input is unnecessary and they do not want to hear it.

In the GAA we are only allowed to do three things:

1. Ignore what's broken

2. Break what's working

3. Go to mass"
The Super 8s came in for a reason. The current group stage of 3 advancing is unlikely to go beyond 2025.
The GAA's preferred format for 2026 on will have to satisfy providing more meaningful games, with an edge. If supporters aren't paying through the turnstiles for meaningless games, there will be more changes again.

legendzxix (Kerry) - Posts: 8323 - 02/12/2024 15:01:44    2582057

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Replying To legendzxix:  "The Super 8s came in for a reason. The current group stage of 3 advancing is unlikely to go beyond 2025.
The GAA's preferred format for 2026 on will have to satisfy providing more meaningful games, with an edge. If supporters aren't paying through the turnstiles for meaningless games, there will be more changes again."
I suppose all things considered, that old 2017 "Christy Ring Cup" format (Rds 1, 2A/2B, 3, QFs etc) is superior to the group stage and will likely pass for 3 yrs.

omahant (USA) - Posts: 2908 - 03/12/2024 13:43:23    2582184

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