Joe Brolly: GAA 'restoring the balance' by prioritising club over county

Pundit Joe Brolly says the GAA will be "restoring the balance" by prioritising club activity over county when games return later this month.

Derry's 1993 All-Ireland winner claimed it is "a particular source of delight" for him that clubs are being given a 13-week window to play league and championship fixtures before counties can start training on 14 September.

In a wide-ranging interview with BBC Sport NI, Brolly says he is excited about the knockout football championship but would have loved an open draw.

He also challenged the Gaelic Players Association over its request for the players' insurance scheme to start prior to the resumption of county training.

Brolly claimed he is aware of some county teams who have returned to training and said the GAA will be unable to police their own rules to prevent them doing so.

"You can see very clearly in that GPA announcement about the importance of county players being insured even before the training ban is over," Brolly said.

"I mean, why would they want players to be insured before the training ban is over?"

Elitist drift

Brolly has rued the underperformance of counties such as Derry

Brolly believes there a concentration on inter-county action to the detriment of the club game.

"For too long we have had this elitist drift where clubs don't see their county players," he said.

"The fixtures are heavily weighted in favour of the county team so that 98% of the playing population are being marginalised, so the fact the GAA says club football first, in a county like Derry for example, has just been brilliant for morale.

"You often have a renegade professional set-up at county level where the clubs are irrelevant and the county managers call the shots.

"This has led to a vast waste of resources, where a county manager becomes the leader of the county and county boards are not doing their primary job - which is to look at their clubs.

"There has been a huge disconnect between clubs and county boards, but if clubs are strong, the counties are strong.

"Club players want to play for their county, county players want to play for their clubs. That is a healthy crossover.

"It has been extremely demoralising to watch what's been happening in Derry and great counties like Down and Armagh, who have underperformed so poorly for eight, nine, 10 years, so it is about time the balance was restored."

GAA calendar is dysfunctional

Brolly believes the GAA calendar is flawed

Brolly says the shutdown of sporting activity because of the coronavirus pandemic has given inter-county gaelic footballers and hurlers a chance to rest and heal aching bodies.

He insists the inter-county season should last no longer than four months, and while the health crisis has led to a unique 'club first, county second' scenario in 2020, he hopes it will encourage Croke Park chiefs to tackle long-standing difficulties in a flawed GAA calendar.

"Everyone knows the county season is too long, it is very bad for player well-being," Brolly said.

"They are training as professionals while trying to lead a life.

"Real player well-being is about ensuring amateur players have a healthy balance between their lives, their emotional lives and their sport.

"If you're a county player you are at the beck and call of a county manager and have no time to have a proper career or build meaningful relationships. You come to 30 and you have very little life experience.

"I trained very hard for Derry but I was able to become a barrister and spend 30 hours a week in court, to buy a mortgage, to have kids, to build a life basically.

"Now the county game has become all-obliterating and has created a dysfunctional life for players. At least lockdown has given them a chance to breathe."

Knockout format should be here to stay

Brolly believes the knockout format will suit players such as Tyrone's Mattie Donnelly

The 2020 inter-county Senior Football Championship will be played on a straight knockout basis for the first time since 2000, though a back-door format remains in hurling.

Brolly claims the introduction of the All-Ireland qualifier system in 2001 has deprived the modern-day footballer of "a priceless feeling".

"It is going to be tremendously exciting and I was talking to the Tyrone footballer Mattie Donnelly about it last week.

"He is an exciting player whom we haven't seen the best of in this era of blanket defences and go-through-the-motions football.

"I texted him and said 'you have never played knockout football. How exciting is this going to be? You guys are going to Ballybofey to play Donegal in life or death'.

"He said 'I can't wait'. This is the essence of competition, the essence of sport.

"The GAA should have a knockout format every year with maybe a qualifier system and then two tiers with a proper, respected tier two competition."

An open draw would have been 'ballsy'

The Super 8s format was introduced in 2018 on a three-year trial period with mixed results.

The average winning margin in the round-robin games in 2019 was over seven points and Brolly has labelled the format as boring.

He welcomes the return of a straight knockout championship, but would have loved to have seen an open draw,

"Imagine Kerry coming to Celtic Park or the Dubs in the Athletic Grounds or Mayo in the Marshes - it would be a reward for the long-suffering supporters because it is out of the ordinary.

"Imagine there's five minutes to go and you're a point up and are putting huge pressure on the hot favourites in a knockout game?

"Of course the reason it could never happen is because the provincial councils are very strongly opposed to it. Those with a vested interest weren't going to let that happen.

"It's a shame because the Super 8s were designed to increase TV revenue and all it has done is increase the boredom of the championship.

"There are games where it's meaningless for one team who are already out or already through and it exemplifies this Premier League approach of treating an amateur sport as if it is professional, just to extract the maximum revenue out of it.

"It would have been ballsy of the GAA to go for an open draw, but there is just too much political resistance."