A ‘cut-throat’ and ‘exciting’ county senior football championship is expected in Tipperary in 2023.
The current 16 team structure will be reduced to 12 by 2025.
This means that in 2023 and 2024, three teams will be relegated from the senior grade each season, allowing for the Intermediate county champions to also be promoted each year.
Tipperary County Football Board Chairman Conor O’Dwyer says it’s going to be better for the competition in the long run:
“That’s a fairly sharp, short cut and understandably not every club is in favour of it.
“No club wants to go down a level but our view at least is we need to face reality that it’s not as competitive as it can be.
“I think the ideal scenario is it would eventually go to 12, 12 and 12 (across senior, intermediate and premier junior) but it’s going to take a couple of years to get there.
“It does mean that it’s going to be fairly tight at the end of this year (2023) where three teams will be relegated from the top tier.
“We certainly believe it will help, certainly it will make for a fairly cut-throat championship this year and a lot of exciting games hopefully.”
