That’s according to chair of the County Football Board Fearghal McDonnell who’s been reflecting on the championship so far this year following the conclusion of the group stages.
There’s no relegation in any of the top three grades of the football championship this season after a proposal was passed earlier in the year.
This has led to a number of walkovers in the county football championship – Fearghal McDonnell told this weeks Extra Time that the plan is to have normal relegation returning in next year’s championship.
“Yeah that’s what we have been told, that we will pick up again in next year’s championship where we finished off last year.
“The intention is still to move forward to get to 12 senior football teams and 12 intermediate for 2026 now at this stage.
“We had our roadmap set up for 2025 to have 12 senior football teams, 12 intermediate teams and 8 premier junior football teams by 2025 and unfortunately we had a team pull out of the senior football championship, that screwed that.
“It has had a knock-on effect across all three grades.
“We had a proposal put to the county board to restructure the football championship so we could have knockout relegation but unfortunately that got defeated at the county board where they preferred to have no relegation this year so that’s where we lie in this year’s championship.”
