Playing by their rules - How to pass at GAA Congress

Special congresses have been a regular enough occurrence in recent years that they're surely in danger of losing the 'special' designation.

These days, a year without a Special Congress to report upon is an aberration. Saturday's meeting in Croke Park will be the sixth such gathering in the last eight years, a sign, in itself, of how much reform has taken place in the past decade.

Back in 2017, the big-ticket item on the slate at September's Special Congress was the hurling championship re-structure, devised and proposed by Liam Sheedy's committee over the summer amid fears that hurling was set to be swamped, following football's adoption of the Super 8s formula at the annual Congress earlier that year.

In late 2019, a Special Congress finally ushered in the second-tier championship by a reasonably comfortable margin, despite the reservations of the GPA and the opposition of several counties, notably in Ulster. Opposing the motion, Antrim chairman Ciarán McCavana said: "On the day when the lunatics in Westminster are talking about Brexit, we're talking about Sam-exit."

The 2020 Special Congress, held remotely in mid-April, was more of a procedural necessity, arranged purely for the purpose of allowing the GAA to adapt its rules to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In late 2021, it was back to structures, and the ill-fated Proposal B, the league-based championship format which was loudly endorsed by most of the playing community and opposed with every fibre of their being by the provincial councils. Ulster, again, said no in big numbers, as did Mayo and Galway and the motion fell well short of the 60% threshold despite having the support of then president Larry McCarthy.

The 2023 Special Congress was comparatively humdrum, the