Stated simply, the focus is to provide “the best possible games experience for players and spectators”. At Croke Park on Friday morning, former Dublin manager Jim Gavin, now chair of the Football Review Committee (FRC), outlined the thinking behind the wide-ranging review of Gaelic football that is under way.
The timetable is demanding, with special congresses due in December of this year and also at the end of 2025 with a view to, first, trialling and reviewing next year and then implementing finalised, permanent rule changes in time for the 2026 season.
Now engaged in the consultative phase, having considered the actual playing rules, the committee has already met eight times. Announced at last February’s annual congress by incoming GAA president Jarlath Burns, the FRC is comprised of some of football’s best-known names.
“The terms of reference that the Uachtaráin has given us are exciting,” said Gavin. “It is audacious to [aspire to] be the most exciting amateur sport in the world. That’s a lofty ambition but I think it’s great that we are stretching ourselves ... and we are really excited to see what the stakeholders have to say about this.”
Asked about the ambitiousness of the scheduling, Gavin acknowledged that it would be challenging to produce new rules for trialling in the 2025 national league.
“Yeah, it’s a challenge but it’s not an insurmountable challenge in the timelines that we have if congress would sit, which we believe would be a special congress, on the December 7th [2024].
“I’m thinking of next year, the Saturday would be January 26th or 27th maybe. So that would be seven weeks for teams to prepare for those, for the national football league, and we obviously have the preseason as well, which will give the teams an opportunity to trial the rules.”
He also referenced a previous football review, chaired by the late Eugene McGee, which was the first to launch a mass-consultation exercise and which introduced initiatives, such as the black card in response to widespread concerns among stakeholders about cynical play.
Gavin also noted that McGee had discovered on reflection that there hadn’t been as much wrong with football as was widely thought. The game, though, has always been fixated on change and the concomitant conviction that there was something wrong with it.
He said that one of FRC member had pointed out that, “I think back in 1923 there was a report in one of the [papers]– it might have been the Independent – that the game was in crisis so it’s nothing new for us as an association”. The committee had also reviewed the report of the 1971 McNamee Commission and its views on the game.
Among the concerns of the 2012 FRC, besides cynical fouling, were refereeing inconsistency and the lack of high catching in the game. Current preoccupations are short kickouts, uninterrupted bouts of keep-ball and lack of contested possession.
The timeline is fairly detailed. After consultation with a range of stakeholders in three categories from the organisational to the participating to the consuming or reporting, a draft report will be submitted to Central Council in November this year, with adoption by special congress a few weeks later.
Trialling is to take place in the 2025 season, league and championship. Gavin felt that there would be adequate time for teams to absorb the proposed changes in the seven weeks and that Central Council would be kept informed on FRC thinking so that there would be no bolts from the blue in November.
Burns said that the necessity of trialling in championship had been brought home by Gavin’s comments about his own attitude to rules experimentation.
“If he had a set of trial rules for the league, he said you won’t really bring them into your coaching – you won’t really train for them. It will happen on a Sunday and you’ll not really worry about it.
“But whenever you know it’s coming in for the championship, it’s a serious event. And this is a serious event because 2025 is a rule-change year. We can’t do anything radical to our rules again until 2030.”
Engagement will be through a dedicated interactive website, to be launched later on Friday, or simply writing to or e-mailing the committee. Suggestions can be sent by letter to Jim Gavin, FRC Chair, Croke Park, Dublin 3, D03 P6K7 or to FRC2024@gaa.ie.
FRC: Jim Gavin (Dublin; chair), Séamus Kenny (Meath; secretary), Colm Collins (Clare), Patrick Doherty (Westmeath), Éamonn Fitzmaurice (Kerry), Shane Flanagan (Kildare), James Horan (Mayo), Alec McQuillan (Antrim), Michael Meaney (Carlow), Michael Murphy (Donegal), Colm Nally (Louth), Malachy O’Rourke (Fermanagh).
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