Battle for the soul of football - FRC v the sceptics

The backlash to the Football Review Committee's enhanced rules kicked into a higher gear this week.

The managerial and coaching fraternity are really beginning to find their voice, raising their hackles against the bewildering pace of change and at the volume of new legislation coming down on top of them.

The reigning All-Ireland winning manager has been in the vanguard of the opposition from the start, the FRC-sceptic in chief.

Kieran McGeeney has spent much of the spring complaining about the rule changes, as well as complaining that you couldn't say anything against the rule changes. (these days, if you say anything against the FRC, they put you in jail, etc, etc).

'Geezer' has never evinced anything but seething contempt for nostalgic pundits, and he clearly sees their incessant whinging over many years as providing the unwelcome impetus behind this raft of changes.

It may have been Jim Gavin and Eamonn Fitzmaurice that devised the rules, but it was Pat Spillane and Joe Brolly's cribbing that laid the groundwork for them.

On Saturday evening, he dialled up the volume considerably.

"You can't ask teams to tactically build up things for three or four months and then change the rules four or five weeks before the championship. No matter what way you dress that up, that's nonsense.

"People are just getting carried away with themselves. And now we're told that when you pass the ball back into the square, it's only one pass (to the goalkeeper that is allowed). So you're only allowed one pass. And next we'll be told that you're only allowed to do it when the sun is shining into the east.

"What is it they want us to do? Do they not want the goalkeepers to touch the ball?"

"Confusion" has become the watchword among managers in regard