National Forum

Football Championship 2026

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Replying To Spoofer:  "A solution for next year:

Win your provincial, you're guaranteed home advantage til the QF. Every other tie is neutral.

It's not ideal, and it could mean the likes of Kerry and Dublin always play at home, but there needs to be some sort of incentive for winning province. The provincial finals are ceremonial in their current state."
Problem with that is it's too easy to win munster, your giving cork and kerry an advantage they have not earned?

Expertinall (UK) - Posts: 57 - 05/05/2026 21:55:31    2671204

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Replying To Mayonman:  "Not a great format.

Group phase was much better.

All the usual know-alls complaining about dead rubbers ........ they rarely happened and so what if the odd one happens.

Then they were complaining that there was too many games to get rid of just 4 teams ..... do they not like football???

The only changes I would have made to last years system
-Provincials must be seeded as they feed into All Ireland series. Seedings must be on finishing league position (no wriggle room for Provincial council skullduggery!!). this would mean more evenly balanced groups as the seeding would be earned, rather than someone getting into a provincial final due to a lobsided draw and then getting a high seed.
-Reduce qualification out of group to 2 (not overly bothered with this one but it would add more jeopardy ......the word of 2025!!)"
Totally agree. Last year was great, granted we could have done without the round of 16, so maybe only 2 qualifying from each group straight to the Quarter finals would do tidy things up. And as you say, league placement provides seeding.

Sunday Game pundits need to focus on football and forget about trying to influence the Association, almost every episode has a "Politics" moment, where big Ciaran Whelan or Lee Keegan basically tells the association what needs to change. Surely they could do that through their local club and stick to match analysis.

Constant rule changes and format changes is becoming a bit tiresome.

Commodore (Donegal) - Posts: 1818 - 05/05/2026 22:39:36    2671212

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To me it's clearly a mixture of lobbying by county boards and commercial interests of the GAA HQ - structuring it so that the strongest counties can afford to lose a couple of games and still wind up in the business end. Kerry can lose to Cork and lose to Donegal and still wind up in the final against Donegal because repeat pairings are to be avoided. I'm all for more games but genuinely believe teams should only get one second chance in championship. The calendar is also the enemy here - everyone knows the draw should be made after the provincial finals but they can't because the calendar is so compressed. Surely they could push everything out by a week though and make the draw on 17 May after the Leinster final which would give teams the guts of 2 weeks to prepare for the first round of the AI series.

gwanyagudthing (Meath) - Posts: 155 - 06/05/2026 09:14:04    2671230

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A lot of people validly pointing out that winning a provincial final has no relevance on what happens next. You might be right. Before I offer a solution, here's what I think about that argument in terms of each provincial final and how competitive I think they'll be:
- Dublin vs Westmeath: I'm system this one will be competitive. Dublin will be looking to reassert themselves as kings of Leinster, while Westmeath will want to win a rare Leinster championship.
- Armagh vs Monaghan: it's Ulster so no fear of either team lying down.
- Galway vs Roscommon: hard to know, although Roscommon haven't won it since 2019 and Galway are chasing 5 in a row.
- Kerry vs Cork: apart from the obvious rivalry, there's every chance they mightn't care, but Cork would care more, seeing that it's 2012 since they won it.

So, my simple solution is to reward provincial champions like so: you keep *unbeaten* provincial champions away from other provincial champions as much as possible, so the reward follows them all the way through the championship.

Round 1: They can't meet here anyway.

Round 2A: Any provincial champions that make it here get kept apart. Because repeats of provincial finals can't happen either, it might mean limited opposition in the draw for some teams, but that's alright.

Round 2B: This round contains teams beaten in Round 1, and so there's no protection for provincial champions. Say Kerry and Galway both prevail in their provincial finals but then get beaten in Round 1. Now, if they can't make good on their provincial titles, there should be nothing to help them limp into the latter stages of the championship by letting them avoid each other.

Round 3: Ditto: all beaten teams.

Quarter-finals: Any unbeaten provincial champions that have made it unbeaten through Rounds 1 and 2A get to avoid all other provincial champions, both beaten and otherwise (so, continuing with the example above, the Ulster and Leinster champions would avoid Kerry). However, provincial champions that have lost a game can still be drawn against each other (e.g. Kerry can meet Galway here even if they can't be drawn against the other two provincial champions).

Semi-finals: Again unbeaten provincial champions would avoid each other, or maybe at this stage you'd open it up, I dunno.

Tacaí Liatroma (Leitrim) - Posts: 1289 - 06/05/2026 09:21:02    2671232

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provincial champs should get a bye in first round of Sam. This would make it all normal.

maroondiesel (Mayo) - Posts: 1274 - 06/05/2026 10:24:38    2671237

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Splitting Round 1 over two weekends is one part of the problem. If the weekend after the Ulster final was left as a hurling only weekend, all Round 1 games could be on the same weekend. The draw could be the day after the Ulster final, with two weeks for everyone for knowing their opponent.

legendzxix (Kerry) - Posts: 9709 - 06/05/2026 12:48:21    2671272

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Replying To legendzxix:  "Splitting Round 1 over two weekends is one part of the problem. If the weekend after the Ulster final was left as a hurling only weekend, all Round 1 games could be on the same weekend. The draw could be the day after the Ulster final, with two weeks for everyone for knowing their opponent."
That's true. But even so, the provincial finals still remain basically meaningless in the All-Ireland scheme of things, if there's no actual added bonus for winning your provincial title.

There might be a change possible through seeding:
Pot 1 - the four provincial champions
Pot 2 - the four provincial runners-up
Pot 3 - the four highest qualifiers through League positions
Pot 4 - the four lowest qualifiers through League positions

First round would be Pot 1 v Pot 4, and Pot 2 v Pot 3.

You could still even do the draw before the provincial finals, and it could even add more spice to them, e.g.:
Winner of Kerry/Cork v Kildare (and no disrespect to Kildare!)
Loser of Kerry/Cork v Donegal

Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3572 - 06/05/2026 13:18:53    2671281

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Replying To maroondiesel:  "provincial champs should get a bye in first round of Sam. This would make it all normal."
No, they shouldn't. This is the point, the provincial championships are not equal or even close to it.
A fair All Ireland series should not have the munster winners getting a bye ahead of a leinster finalist for example.

JimB1991 (Donegal) - Posts: 165 - 06/05/2026 13:44:10    2671294

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Replying To Pikeman96:  "That's true. But even so, the provincial finals still remain basically meaningless in the All-Ireland scheme of things, if there's no actual added bonus for winning your provincial title.

There might be a change possible through seeding:
Pot 1 - the four provincial champions
Pot 2 - the four provincial runners-up
Pot 3 - the four highest qualifiers through League positions
Pot 4 - the four lowest qualifiers through League positions

First round would be Pot 1 v Pot 4, and Pot 2 v Pot 3.

You could still even do the draw before the provincial finals, and it could even add more spice to them, e.g.:
Winner of Kerry/Cork v Kildare (and no disrespect to Kildare!)
Loser of Kerry/Cork v Donegal"
Could do that or another option is provincial winners kept apart in Round 2A. That would keep provincial winners apart until semi finals, unless they lose along the way.

On your suggestion of merit though:
1. Donegal
2. Mayo
3. Meath
4. Louth
5. Derry
6. Tyrone
7. Cavan
8. Kildare

Munster winner v Tyrone
Connacht winner v Kildare
Munster runner-up v Meath
Connacht runner-up v Donegal

Leinster winner v Cavan
Ulster winner v Derry
Leinster runner-up v Louth
Ulster runner-up v Mayo

legendzxix (Kerry) - Posts: 9709 - 06/05/2026 15:04:36    2671317

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Replying To maroondiesel:  "provincial champs should get a bye in first round of Sam. This would make it all normal."
Provincials not even level numerically, never mind the hurling province, how can they all get the same advantage of a bye?

Expertinall (UK) - Posts: 57 - 06/05/2026 17:05:18    2671341

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Replying To maroondiesel:  "provincial champs should get a bye in first round of Sam. This would make it all normal."
Why should they? The new system is designed to level the playing field for all teams in the AI series.
Some teams are getting a handy run in their own province and when it comes to the next stage they are much fresher and have a hugh advantage.

Scenicparish (Donegal) - Posts: 928 - 06/05/2026 17:22:37    2671344

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