Harte: every county has a right to be in the race for Sam

January 19, 2016

Tyrone manager Mickey Harte.
©INPHO/Presseye/Tony Hendron.

Mickey Harte has spoken out strongly against proposals for a 'B' championship.

The Tyrone manager is opposed to the motion which will be included at Congress next month, whereby Division Four counties would be entered into a secondary competition lest they reach their respective provincial finals.

"I don't think that it would be fair and I think it has been offered before - an alternative or subsidiary competition to the teams in that partocular division and nobody in those positions wants it at all," the three-times All-Ireland winning  told The Irish News.

"They want to be part of the real deal and I think that they deserve the right to be part of the real deal.

"And I can't see anybody in their county or their county players getting excited about playing in a second competition - it's just not part of what gaelic football tradition has been about.

"People like to be involved in the big one - in the race for Sam - regardless if at any given time the bookies or anybody else might count them as no-hopers.

"For a whole generation there were mismatches. Nobody could live with Dublin and Kerry in the decade of the Dubs and the golden years of Kerry. If an Ulster team and a Connacht team didn't meet each other in a semi-final, they had no mission of going near the All-Ireland at all.

"So should they all have given up and forgotten about it and said 'leave this to Dublin and Kerry, let them play this just head-to-head every year'? Only one team is going to win the All-Ireland, so does that mean the rest of us are failures?"


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