GAA to consider August All-Ireland football final

The GAA's Central Council will this weekend consider whether to retain the Allianz Football League finals and push the All-Ireland SFC final back into August.

Despite a hectic and compacted split-season calendar, it now looks increasingly likely that the four divisional finals will be retained next year.

But counties are still looking for an extra week to be found between the end of the league and start of the championship, which seems likely to delay the start of the club season.

A lengthy consultative process conducted by the Central Competitions Control Committee has been in operation over the past number of months to address this issue ahead of forming a master fixtures plan, and to glean feedback on several significant areas of the association’s administration.

Initially, it emerged that a majority of counties favoured scrapping the four league finals, with the winners instead defined by their league table placings.

This feedback led to a subsequent survey for counties to complete ahead of another Central Council meeting this Saturday.

Since that first survey, there has been a comprehensive swing in favour of retaining the finals, while a minority of Joe McDonagh hurling counties are in favour of also retaining the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-finals – which give the second-tier finalists a chance to play Liam MacCarthy opposition in the All-Ireland series.

The latest CCCC survey suggested the possibility of starting the 2024 inter-county season a week earlier, on 20 January, which would allow the league finals to be played at the end of March rather than the start of April.

The knock-on effect would be bringing the AIB All-Ireland club finals forward by a week, to 13 January, and all provincial club championships would