Pictured here to announce the Dalata Hotel Group five-year sponsorship of the GAA Under 20 Football Championship were, Dermot Crowley (Dalata CEO) and Jarlath Burns, GAA President. The championship is now titled the Dalata Hotel Group GAA Under 20 Football Championship.
By John Harrington
GAA President, Jarlath Burns, believes Gaelic football is close to becoming the “perfect game” thanks to the positive impact of the FRC rule enhancements.
Speaking at the announcement that the Dalata Hotel Group have signed on as sponsors of the All-Ireland U-20 football championship for five years, Burns hailed the huge work done by his FRC Committee Chairperson, Jim Gavin, to make Gaelic football a more enjoyable sport to play for players and a more entertaining spectacle for supporters.
“When I was elected as president-elect last year, I made it clear that it was going to be my No 1 priority,” said Burns. “I didn’t want to say fix the game, but enhance the game of football.
“I had done a lot of thinking before I decided who I wanted to put in charge of that, and I think I definitely hit the jackpot with the man that I got, Jim Gavin. He’s an incredible guy.
“I speak to him maybe three or four times a week, he’s very methodical, very meticulous. The one thing we both decided was we wanted to create a blueprint.
“We weren’t just tinkering with the rules. We weren’t going to do something there that was going to affect something here.
“We were going to completely reimagine, starting off, what do we want the game to be. We wanted to say we had one of the most exciting games to play and to watch and to participate in.
“That’s quite a big north star as he called it, and I gave him a very short space of time to do it because 2025 is a year when you are allowed to change rules. It has to be in a year that is divisible by five, so the next time we will be able to do that is 2030.
“Hopefully by that stage, like hurling this year, there won’t be any changes needed so I really feel that we are getting very close to what you could call the perfect game.
"The biggest thing is, and this is why Michael Murphy and these people have come back, you want to give the people who are creative and who can do things and who can score, just a bit of space. That’s really it. A bit of space.
“Whenever you can take 15 men behind the ball, you are cutting down on space, and I think that’s what we have done. We have created space and we have created fast transitions, and I really do think it’s working.”