WITH the way things are progressing, it seems that we may have some football activity before the year is out. We will have to wait and hope that we don’t see any increase in cases, but you would have to admit that things are looking positive at this point in time.

Bearing in mind that we are in June and that by now we should be well into the provincial fixtures, the next question we have is that if there is to be a return to action how would that look?

Personally I only see room for one championship so for me a decision has to be taken on whether it’s club or county that gets the green light, but for the time being let’s play with the idea of playing both to see how that looks.

The GAA has stated that after the June 8 they will issue their own roadmap for a return to action with a phase-by-phase approach similar to what the government released a few weeks back.

It has already been stated that there will be no return to action until at least July 20 so let’s just take it that we will get the go ahead then. Teams, be it club or county, will need at least four weeks of collective training before they would be able to play any sort of competitive game so that takes you up until August 20. You can see why I opt for playing club only as it would be exactly around this time of year that most club championships would swing into action.

This would mean that all county boards could stick to the championship dates that they have.

Let’s play with the option of playing the county scene first. If that happens surely it will only be a straight knockout format so it would seem that you would need five weekends to play off that competition.

Player welfare and the event of replays etc, won’t allow for a week-on-week approach so there will be a week’s break between games. That takes us to 10 weeks to play that competition.

Should the All-Ireland throw in on the weekend of August 22 then the final would be in and around October 31. The big question after this would be how on earth are counties supposed to get their club championships run off after that?

Is it right for the GAA to squeeze everything in just to get it played off and gather as much money as they can or should the decision be taken to leave it this year and run with what would work best?

Let’s now consider how things would look on game day. Will the games be played behind closed doors? If so, is there really an appetite out there for that?

I can’t even imagine what a game between Donegal and Tyrone would feel like if no-one was allowed in to see it. Social distancing simply won’t work for county games but you may have a chance at club level to keep those restrictions in place and keep everyone safe.

If I were involved in the decision-making process I would be opting for the club-only approach and here is why.

We are all itching to get back watching our game so imagine if our club football and hurling was given the go ahead and the free to air channels like RTÉ and TG4 could stream whatever games they liked.

It would generate massive interest in the club scene and it would do wonders for the promotion of the game.

I fully understand that the GAA would be eager to go with the county scene as a lot of things are hanging on it like TV rights, revenue etc, but to try and play both off this year is crazy in my opinion.

We all await the publication of this road map with hope and optimism. I ask those who are involved in coming up with this blueprint to ensure that after it’s published that we are not all looking at each other wondering how on earth it will work.

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