Congress approves football championship revamp

The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship format’s proposed changes have received unanimous support from the GAA Congress.

The decision that will remove the round-robin stage of the football championship was supported by almost 93% of Donegal Town’s delegates.

The round-robin stage has received criticism for lacking drama and jeopardy. Currently, 24 matches are played across four, four-team groups to eliminate just four teams.

16 teams will still compete for the Sam Maguire Cup under the new structure, which will be in place from 2026 to 2028.

The rest of the top seven Allianz Football League teams, who have not already clinched spots, will be the eight provincial finalists, along with the previous year’s Tailteann Cup winners.

The eight provincial finalists will face off against the other eight teams in Round One.

The winners of the round one games will then face off in four games, with the winners of those games reaching the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

The winners of those matches will then face the four teams eliminated from the second round of games, with the winners of those matches then having to face the four winners.

The four winners of those contests will progress to the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

A hurling handpass was severely defeated during the first of Saturday’s motions in Donegal Town.

A new rule was proposed in the Tipperary motion that would prohibit handpassers from using the same hand as they do the sliotar.

This was attributed to the widespread perception that modern players were getting away with frequent illegal handpasses.

However, the motion was heavily defeated as it received only 32.4% support – well short of the two-thirds majority required for a rule change.

After a heated discussion, a motion was put down that required a player to have played four club league games in the same year in order to compete in inter-county championship football.

The motion’s main opponent, former Dublin player Noel McCaffrey, who was speaking on behalf of the Clontarf club who submitted it, rejected it, despite the statement made by Cork GAA CEO Kevin O’Donovan as “unworkable and unenforceable.”

The motion should be withdrawn with a view to amending it for the upcoming Congress, according to GAA President Jarlath Burns, who then made the suggestion.

A Special Congress was given the authority to adjourn and defer to a motion that requested that provincial finals be replayed if teams are level after normal time and that All-Ireland Senior Finals be played on replays to prevent penalty shootouts in provincial deciders.