Dublin county convention has passed a motion that would see players having to play a minimum of four league games with their clubs in order to be eligible for inter-county selection.

The Clontarf motion, which read: "inter-county and club league games will be scheduled in a way that allows this eligibility requirement to be met," will go forward to Congress in February to be voted on. It was tabled by former Dublin All-Star defender Noel McCaffrey – who is father of All-Ireland winners Jack and Sarah - who maintains that inter-county players should play for their clubs more often.

"The reality is now that inter-county players hardly ever play with their clubs except in the now-shortened club aspect of the split season, which is now down to four months,” he said in an RTÉ interview recently.

"In Dublin, and probably many other counties, the vast majority of clubs don't have county players.

"A Dublin club will play on average four championship games. We can’t surely accept that inter-county players are playing four games with their club. I would argue it is a complete betrayal of what the GAA should be about.

"What is so, so special about the GAA, should be, is that David Clifford plays with Kerry one week, and next week he’s with playing his friends, in front of his family and neighbours, and the following week he is back in with Kerry.

"That is an extraordinarily unique aspect of the GAA. We are not celebrating that, we are stamping it out.

"We have values that are rooted in the community. We have values that supposedly mean our heroes are in the local park on a regular basis, not just four times a year."

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