Sligo manager Niall Carew says weaker football counties need more funding from Croke Park in order to get competitive.

As the gap between the haves and have-nots in gaelic football continues to widen, Carew is fearful for the future of the smaller counties unless action is taken at the highest level:

"Croke Park needs to wake up and smell the coffee. The budget for the smaller counties isn't a fraction of what the bigger counties are getting and how can you prepare a team the same? How can you compete with that?," he states in The Irish Times.

"The work isn't here for the lads so County Boards have to pay them to drive from Dublin or Galway for training. The bigger counties like Dublin, Meath and Kildare don't have that issue.

"We are lucky here in Sligo, we have really good support, but we are a small county. When you think that Sligo Rovers and Connacht Rugby are also pulling out of the talent pool, everyone wants a piece of the pie.

"Everyone says: 'It's down to the skill level and it doesn't take much to catch the ball and kick it'. But it is the fractions of a per cent that gets you over the line. It is having these facilities and services that attract players into county set-ups. That's where Croke Park has to step in to help the likes of Sligo; the County Board need help to keep the game going.

"It's only when you go into management that you realise the size of the problem. People don't see that and I don't think they want to see that in Croke Park either."

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