A general view of a Star Champ sliotar prior to the 2020 GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship Final match between Limerick and Waterford at Croke Park in Dublin.
By John Harrington
The GAA will finalise plans this year for the development of a digital sliotar for use in official games.
A electronic chip will be added to the sliotar in order to verify its quality and origin.
A mobile phone app will be used to detect the chip in order to confirm that the sliotar has been produced by an officially approved manufacturer who will be subject to a quality assurance programme.
It is hoped this will curb the production of inferior quality and counterfeit sliotars sourced from outside of Ireland and which may have involved the use of child labour.
The chip will verify that the sliotar has been ethically manufactured by an approved supplier.
This will be the second significant change to the sliotar in the space of a year after the colour was changed from white to yellow for the All-Ireland SHC.
This was done to make the sliotar more visible to spectators and the change was deemed a success so will be retained.
