Concern voiced over shelving of FBD League

Former Mayo footballer Colm Boyle and Connacht GAA CEO John Prenty have expressed concern about the shelving of the FBD League.

The Central Council decision to scrap pre-season competitions on a one-year trial basis is set to cost the Connacht Council over €100,000, according to Prenty.

Speaking to The Mayo News, Prenty said that getting rid of pre-season competitions would increase the costs on counties.

The experienced administrator, who previously described the cost of preparing intercounty teams as ‘a runaway train’, said Connacht GAA would have to review ‘every item of expenditure’ due to the lost income, including coaching.

A grant which the association provides to counties travelling to New York for the Connacht senior football championship may also have to be reduced.

Prenty said: “€104,000 is a big hit in one fell swoop. It’ll increase the cost on counties. You have new rules coming in in the league, I assume they will have, and there’ll be counties running around all over the country looking for challenge matches. They won’t have any proper organised structure to see how these rules work for them. So you’ll be heading off to the first round of the league and teams won’t have had proper preparation.”

Gaelic Players Association CEO and former Mayo footballer, Tom Parsons, said in a circular to members that abolishing pre-season competitions would provide ‘much-needed rest before pre-season training resumes.’

Prenty argued: “If you look at what the pre-seasons have been there for, it’s giving you an opportunity to look at other guys on a competitive basis. They are not full-blown, dog-eat-dog games, but they give you a chance to bring fellas on.

“All counties have done that, Galway in particular last year. They had a lot of look at fellas that finished playing in the championship. That opportunity is gone now. Counties have a big job in hand to get enough preparation in, challenge-wise, pre-Allianz League, at the end of January. You can’t guarantee where you’re going to play, because the weather is making the pitches worse. We’re lucky here in Connacht where there’s an environment [the Air Dome] that, hail rain or snow, we’ll still play a game.”

Prenty said that the 2025 fixtures calendar would operate on ‘more or less the same dates as last year.’ This, he said, would still potentially leave some counties with a short window between league finals and provincial championship games.

Former Mayo footballer Colm Boyle echoed many of Prenty’s misgivings, citing soon-to-be introduced rule changes and the short gap between league and championship.

Speaking to The Mayo News after Davitts’ championship win over Hollymount-Carramore, Boyle said that getting rid of the pre-season competitions makes ‘absolutely no sense’ unless the National Football League is completed earlier.

Reflecting on his own personal experience of the FBD League, Boyle said: “When you are a player trying to break through and trying to break onto the squad, even just break onto the national league squad, they’re the only opportunities that you have.

“I remember going down to an FBD game in 2012 against Leitrim in Ballyhaunis, and it was almost like an All-Ireland final to me. I knew I had to play well. If I didn’t I would have been dropped off the panel. That’s how tight the margins are,” added the Davitts clubman.