Offaly GAA has given the green light to a controversial new football championship structure that will see all teams in its Senior, Senior ‘B’, Intermediate and Junior Championships progress to the knockout stages, with the groups deciding rankings only.

Delegates surprisingly voted two-to-one, 36-18, in favour of the new format at last night’s county board meeting in Tullamore. While the new structure will guarantee every team five championship games – one more than heretofore – a team could conceivably lose all of their group games and still win the championship.

This is an obvious flaw in the proposal which was tabled by Offaly CCC in response to requests by clubs for more championship games. Clara delegate Hugh Naughton proposed that the number of teams in the Senior Football Championship be raised from eight to 10, but was informed that the current 13-week window is too small to accommodate such a structure.

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