Ciaran Whelan and Dermot Earley have accused the GAA of having little consideration for the players of Kerry and Mayo by fixing their All-Ireland SFC semi-final replay for the Gaelic Grounds.

The replay has been fixed for the Limerick venue next Saturday at 5pm because Croke Park is committed to staging an American football college game on the same day. The GAA has ruled out the option of the replay being held in Croke Park on Saturday week, September 6 as they want to keep that date free in case next Sunday's second semi-final between Dublin and Donegal also goes to a replay.

There has been a huge backlash against the GAA for turning down Mayo's request to put the replay back by a week. On The Sunday Game last night, Whelan and Earley summed up the mood with both wondering why the Association couldn't have planned things better.

"There's a contradiction within that if the GAA are looking at whether Dublin and Donegal draw and they have to have a contingency for that," former Dublin midfielder Whelan said.

"Why didn't somebody sit down at the start of the year and say, "We need a contingency for every match'. This is the prime time for our games; when we should be in Croke Park.

"When the players are entitled to be in Croke Park, they decided to put an American football match in there in the middle of the high season so that was a commercial decision made by the GAA and I think they didn't have a contingency plan in place for this game and I think it's unfair.

"It's unjust and using the Dublin-Donegal excuse - maybe cross that bridge when you come to it and put them in Croke Park on Saturday week," he added.

Ex-Kildare midfielder Earley also questioned why the replay should be forced out of Croke Park because of an American football match.

"No player dreams of playing an All-Ireland semi-final down in Limerick and that's no disrespect to Limerick because it's a fine ground, but they deserve to play up in Croke Park, at our headquarters, on the best surface in the country with the best facilities," he said.

"I think it's a great thing that we can bring these games to Croke Park but you pick your time, as Ciarán mentioned: this is the busy time, this is our stadium, this is a GAA stadium, this is a busy time for us. The ground is empty for six months of the year, have them at a different time of the year.

"I fully support bringing concerts, bringing American football but its picking the right time and unfortunately this clashes and unfortunately we're going to have an All-Ireland semi-final down in Limerick."

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