The Chair of Tipperary County Board believes that this year’s club championship games may need to become all-ticket affairs.
The limit on outdoor gatherings will rise to 500 by the time this year’s Championships start, and John Devane doesn’t think it’ll be possible to collect cash at gates because of the pandemic.
Competitive action will get underway on the weekend of July 18th with the first round of the Senior & Intermediate Football Championships.
The following weekend, July 25th, will see the first round of the Seamus O’Riain, Intermediate and Senior Hurling Championships.
John Devane believes there’s still the possibility of holding divisional championships later in the year, but it won’t be linked to the county championships.
His personal preference is for that to become a long term scenario.
“People that know me know that I would think that the proper championship is not having a divisional link. I think that we have the template there with the groups of 16 in the hurling championship and in the football championship – that you play on merit to get through in that.”
“But I also think the divisional championships are very important because that’s still a competition that’s there to be won.”
“I just don’t see the need to have a link in it if it’s that important it shouldn’t need a link. The fear that the divisions in fairness have had is that you’d be shunted aside and left until the November – December period. And in fairness that’s probably an understandable fear that shouldn’t really be arising if we do this properly.”
Listen to John’s interview in full:
