Voting on the motions which propose a major revamp of the senior, intermediate and junior A championships was put back for two weeks following a prolonged discussion at the county committee meeting on Monday night.

Brendan Cummins spoke in favour of the county committee's competitions review committee's motions which primarily seeks to eliminate the format of teams being idle in group stage rounds.

Last year there were odd numbers of teams in the three main football championships, 17 in the SFC, 15 in the IFC and 23 in the JFC. The motions propose that there eventually be 18, 12 and 24 respectively.

Cummins said it is illogical to have most of the teams playing on a particular weekend and a few more being idle and out of championship football for a number of weeks. Chairman Barney Allen said that up to 10 meetings were held in order to come up with the proposed format.

Although Cummins reminded the delegates that all teams would have five group games, there was an amount of opposition to the IFC being reduced to 12 with Eugene Comaskey of Carnaross setting the ball rolling.

"I can't see the logic of reducing the intermediate championship to 12 teams and twice that number in the junior championship. Intermediate clubs voting for the motion would be like turkeys voting for Christmas," said Comaskey.

Cathal Joyce and Peter O'Halloran were others to oppose the propsed number of teams in the IFC and JFC.

After Mairead Delaney proposed that the vote be put back for a week so as to allow clubs to submit amendments, the Chairman Barney Allen decided to postpone the vote for a fortnight.

A Dunsany motion proposing a new football championship for second teams of senior clubs was lost on a show of hands. Richard Harrahill of Dunsany had suggested that junior clubs meeting senior seconds in the early rounds could be at a disadvantage.

Larry McEntee (Nobber) and Noel Farrell (Blackhall) opposed the motion with the latter suggesting that that there would be more prestige attached to winning the junior A or junior C championships.

Brendan Cummins, who pointed out that Gaeil Colmcille, in 1992, were the last senior club to win the JFC, was also opposed to the motion, saying that the stats don't back the Dunsany motion.

It was announced that the A football leagues will commence on the weekend of February 19th with the second rounds the following weekends and the B leagues kicking off on the weekend of March 4th. Tweet

Most Read Stories