GAA insists there will be no referee shortage for opening league weekend

The GAA is adamant there will be no shortage of referees for next week's opening weekend of the Allianz Football League.

Last week it was reported in the Irish Examiner that more than half of inter-county football referees failed to pass new pre-season fitness tests which were conducted at the Irish Sport Campus.

The association says referees that failed to pass the test will be eligible to serve as standby officials for this weekend's opening round of league fixtures.

They will also be able to retake the tests in the coming weeks.

Director of Club, Player and Games Administration, Feargal McGill, told RTÉ Sport that those who were unsuccessful in the fitness tests will be able to do stand-by and sideline officiating.

"We have enough referees for the weekend," McGill clarified. "We have 19 referees who passed the fitness tests. We shouldn’t forget about them and they are primed and ready to go for the weekend.

"And we will reflect on the testing process and results in the coming days. We will also speak with representatives of the referees.

"The failure rate of the tests is a little higher than normal at this point. There is generally some rate of unsuccessful candidates in the system, but it is a little higher than normal this time and we will reflect on that."

Technicalities of the testing system have already been discussed by inter-county referees, but they will soon be entitled to retake the tests if they choose.

"No-one is more disappointed today than those referees themselves. They put a lot of their personal time and commitment into refereeing. The GAA sees our inter-county referees as serious athletes and we treat them as serious athletes," McGill added.

"And knowing the calibre of the people involved as we do, those who