Offaly football boss Pat Flanagan believes Dublin have an unfair advantage by playing all of their championship matches in Croke Park.

While Leinster Council chairman John Horan defended the current arrangement at yesterday's launch of the Leinster championships by insisting "I see no point in potentially locking people out of games while a stadium lies unused," Flanagan dismissed that view and argued that it shouldn't be all about the money.

"You want to just go on the whole ethos of the GAA, it's supposed to be a fair competition," said Flanagan in the Irish Independent, whose Offaly side suffered a 0-22 to 4-16 defeat to Westmeath in a SF challenge in Walsh Island last night.

"But when you play Dublin in Croke Park in every game, it's not a fair competition any more.

"Laois and Offaly would either be in Portlaoise or Tullamore; Westmeath and Offaly, it would be in Mullingar or Tullamore; Offaly and Longford, it's going to be in Pearse Park or Tullamore.  So why is that not applied to every county in Leinster?

"There is a distinct advantage for Dublin, and it's not Jim Gavin's fault or the players' fault, but for the progress of counties like Offaly, Longford and a number of other counties, to be playing Dublin in Dublin when they play all their home matches there is a very difficult scenario to try and deal with."

"Let's face it, you can put 16,000, I think, into Tullamore. You can play a double-header with Dublin footballers and Dublin hurlers the day we're playing, if we manage to get over Longford, and maybe put 60,000.

"The decision is a fairly easy one to make from a financial point of view."

For his part, Dublin manager Jim Gavin said: "From the Dublin football team's perspective, we'll play, and we've always played, where we're told to play.

"It's completely taken out of our control and we've just got on with it."

Tweet

Most Read Stories