Clubs vote in favour of two player eligibility motions but only one passes 60% mark
Two motions on player eligibility for second and third teams found favour with delegates at Thursday's Leitrim GAA County Board Convention but only one was successful, writes John Connolly.
The County Board’s motion that any player who plays in a Connacht SFC, Sam Maguire or Tailteann Cup match be automatically included in a team’s first 18 players, or first 15 for club’s whose second team compete in Junior B & C Championships, easily passed.
However, a motion from St Mary’s Kiltoghert asking that clubs be allowed nominate 18 players for the knockout stages of the championship from among all those who had played in the group stages was defeated as it failed to reach the required 60% majority despite a vote of 34-32 in favour.
An amendment from Ballinamore Sean O’Heslins to remove the provision in the bye-law that stated that any player, not on the first 18 or first 15, who subsequently played in the knockout stages of a higher competition will no longer be eligible to play at a lower level was heavily defeated with only 13 votes in favour.
Proposing the amendment, Sean O’Suilleabhain argued that clubs did not realise that the bye-law had changed to the extent it had this year and that losing players could be effectively limitless. Clubs had a duty to protect the maximum amount of teams playing the maximum number of games.
He pointed out that when the derogation was first brought in, there were 54 teams lining out that year compared to just 44 teams this year. However, chairman Enda Stenson ruled the amendment was not in order as all the motion was doing was amending the existing situation. The motion passed on a show of hands.
Proposing the St Mary’s motion to allow clubs to nominate their first 18 players after the group stages, Sean McGoldrick spoke of a situation where two players in the first 18 who had lost their places due to injury but then had no football for the rest of the year as they could not play with the club’s second team.
Sean said St Mary’s were open to the amendment proposed by Ballinamore but that clubs had to name 18 players who had played in the championship that year and everybody else would be automatically re-graded until they played at a higher level.
Ballinaglera’s Enda Gilrane suggested that only the first three games of a group stage be used to determine the first 18 players to allow clubs to experiment in the final round if they had already qualified for the knockout stages.
Leitrim CCC Secretary Vincent O’Rourke opposed the amendment saying that the motion was not putting more players on the field, rather it was putting more games on certain players. The numbers weren’t there to sustain 54 teams and clubs could not keep pretending they had two or three teams by massaging the numbers when they only had 25 to 30 players.
Secretary Declan Bohan pointed out that numbers playing have dwindled since 2006 and it had nothing to do with eligibility and that the intention of the bye-laws was more about balance and giving the “teams who are bottom of the food tree a fair chance and a decent crack of the whip.”
Mr Bohan said that the proposal to delete this section of the bye-law would put clubs back years and that while he was open to correction, he did not believe there was a single game conceded at adult level this year for the first time in many years.
Cloone’s Enda Tiernan opposed the amendment, saying that to change the bye-law because two players lost their place on a team didn’t make sense. He said that a number of clubs were struggling for players and said the current system promoted fairness and equality in terms of structure.
The old derogation was of no benefit to smaller clubs struggling with numbers when they came up against a strong team but the new system in force in 2022 helped ensure the completion of the club’s fixtures programme as there was no overlap of players.
Sean O’Suilleabhain again proposed his amendment, saying that a lot of clubs would lose a lot of players under the current system and the priority had to be providing the maximum number of games to the maximum number of teams.
When the amended motion was put to the floor, it didn’t receive the backing of delegates with only 13 votes in favour.
Proposing the original motion, Sean McGoldrick said he accepted there were worries about clubs taking advantage of the proposal but asked that clubs would support it in the spirit of the motion. However, Declan Bohan commented that the derogation on player eligibility had been manipulated in the past to the detriment of smaller clubs.
When the votes were tallied, the motion found support with 34 votes in favour to 32 votes against out of a total voting strength of 79 delegates on the evening and as it had not passed the required 60% barrier, the motion was lost.