RTE Sport report that the GAA could speed up the announcement of the 2020 hurling and football championship. They state a reveal could happen later this month.
The government last week announced that the country would push ahead in phases. The next Phase is set begin on June 29th and this is where the GAA may make public the new championship formats. It was originally stated by the GAA last week that championship schedules won’t be announced until August.
RTE Sport state that earlier this week county board officials across the country were told drafting and a compacted inter-county championship would be progressed in the next two weeks. However, this has to be decided on by GAA hierarchy at the Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC). It is also understood that the final rounds of the leagues remain a priority to be finished, especially in high stake game such as promotion. A decision has to be made on this however.
As we know inter-county games can resume from the 17th/18th of October. RTE state that there has been suggestions from Croke Park that the remainder of league games could be played from here. After that then it would be straight into championship with the likelihood of a knockout championship. However, the backdoor qualifiers could remain in place. If these measure were to take place the the 2020 championship will almost go into 2021.
The U20 Hurling championship will be a straight knockout. The U20 football championship is already at the business end of the season. Minor Hurling and Minor football championships will also likely be played on a knockout basis. A plan for all of these will be drafted in the coming weeks. GPA CEO Paul Flynn said, “We must also consider protecting player welfare and balancing personal commitments,”.
Flynn said that players at inter-county will have the option to contribute to a GPA survey next week. Squad representatives and captains call will be on Tuesday of next week. Flynn said, “The planning phase was not straight forward given the complex task of fitting a whole calendar year, which is already at capacity, into a condensed 20-week period.
