Croke Park are silent on new championship proposals and it’s very concerning

"Croke Park have not come out and said anything about this."

On October 23rd, Special Congress will have a meeting that will decide the future of the GAA championship. There are three options on the table, Plan A which involves moving counties around different provinces to make the numbers even, Plan B, which is a league-based championship, and Plan C which is to remain the same. Speaking on the GAA Hour, Colm Parkinson expressed his concerns to me about the lack of noise coming from Croke Park.

"Now, what worries me Lee, is that the GPA are behind this, players and managers are behind this, but the people who are voting, have stayed very quiet. "Like Croke Park have not come out and said anything about this, and this is what worries me, the delegates in congress are influenced from Croke Park.

"What the president, what the director general, you know, what money could potentially filter down. When Paraic Duffy, the director general at the time was trying to sell the Super 8s, he did a national tour of county boards, selling the Super 8s to them, and telling them what money would drip back down to them, through the increased revenue.

"I see none of that now Lee, I see nothing but silence, I’m very concerned that there’s overwhelming public support from supporters, who would have been on that Twitter poll, Inter-county player support, GPA support, but the support from the people you really, really need to influence, the delegates, seems to be completely absent."

Replying on the show, I also shared my views on the situation and why hearing no news is probably bad news.

"Yeah, it’s radio silence coming from that end of things, I suppose that can be concerning. I was trying to think of the logistics from it, like what are their priorities, maybe they think it’s impossible to conduct or something, I don’t know what - in terms of what’s going to be the biggest hassle for them?

"It is just curious, there’s not even a split, there’s not even one person coming out and saying 'No, we should stay the same,' or 'we should do plan A,' there’s not even that, where we can get a gauge of ‘Well, he thinks that, but everyone else pretty much thinks plan B,’ like it’s just across the board silent. 

"I don’t know about you, but I sort of take that as, they want things to remain the same. You were talking about the Super 8s, remaining the same, so would be the back door and the Super 8s process, that sort of structure.

"So, because they backed so heavily behind that, and they really wanted to get that going again, they’re maybe not willing to sacrifice it." You can listen to the full discussion on the GAA Hour now.