GAA PRESIDENT Liam O’Neill says a debate on the merits or otherwise of the senior hurling championships will take place over the next few months.
The Association chief says he receives plenty of correspondence from supporters about the structure of the competitions.
“Anyone who has a better idea about the format of the Championship is welcome. You wouldn’t believe the number of suggestions I get every day about every aspect of my job. Some of them are in very colourful language. You’d never be in this job without suggestions of how to do things better.
“The hurling one comes up for discussion next year and we’ve already started the process… I’ve set up discussion groups, meetings for Central Council members. There are some issues I want to discuss so that we can come back and formulate policy, or formulate the initial thoughts on policy and send out to our sub committees to discuss and come back to us to refine them. We will be discussing the hurling championship and it needs to be discussed.
“But that will be done a year in advance. We’re not going to go running to Congress at short notice with ideas. We want to get a debate going and give everyone a part in the debate. I think I’ve shown that too on the hurling plan that was formed. I asked for a debate on hurling. I conducted it for two years, got a huge committee together and got their thoughts and went from there. We’ve done it with the football. We’ve set up a football committee. I believe there’s a huge number of email suggestions coming in from that committee. That’s democratic. It’s even more democratic than the normal process because it’s giving a voice to people who have a view.
“The better suggestions will be pooled together. I’m sure that group are more than capable of teasing out those things and bringing forward decent suggestions,” he added.
O’Neill says calls for the abolition of the hurling championships does not reflect the will of the majority connected to the game.
“It’s driven by a very small minority,” said O’Neill, who was speaking yesterday in Croke Park as the GAA and GPA announced their backing for the Concussion Awareness Video Campaign being launched brain injury specialists Acquired Brain Injury Ireland, “and I don’t see any appetite in the organisation for it.
“If it’s there it hasn’t been made clear to me.”
