Donegal could go it alone with 'unaffiliated leagues' after summer football vote

Both the Donegal League and Inishowen League have expressed grave concerns over the unified FAI calendar and the move to summer football - with talk even of a breakaway, unaffiliated league.

Delegates at a general assembly of the FAI on Thursday voted in favour of aligning the season calendar across the board with the vote passing by 74 votes to 56, with a requirement of needing 51% of the delegates to vote in favour. Over 65 per cent of Ireland's 72 leagues are currently playing a winter season, and they'll now change on a phased basis over the next four years.

Under the plan, Leagues will run from February to November, an aim that is a part of the Football Pathways Plan devised by the FAI's Director of Football, Marc Canham.

However, the plans - which will now come into effect in 2028 - have been met with resistance in the northwest.

Donegal Junior League Secretary Nigel Ferry says the threat to the Donegal League and many of its clubs, may result in Donegal going it alone and setting up their own unaffiliated league.

“We also surveyed our clubs and it was 86 per cent against the result,” said Ferry. “You are going to have sides that slip off the radar.

“Twenty-six out of our 40 clubs only have one pitch. If you are going to force those clubs to play all their matches, from schoolboys, girls adult men and women, between March and October, there is no way you can accommodate everyone in that short window.

“My biggest annoyance is that this whole thing has been railroaded into suit elite footballers. It’s to suit the League of Ireland clubs, academies and teams to create a pyramid and it has totally ignored grassroots football.

“The 40 clubs here, the 16 or so in Inishowen, from schoolboys up to adult, that’s 95 percent I’d say of the people that are playing football in the county. The other five percent, your elite players, this is to suit them”.

Ferry also referenced the ‘simple majority’ voting metric that was used to rubber stamp the change and says it was another example of the goalposts being moved to make sure the result was the desired one.

“Totally, this was a done deal from the off. From day one, at any of the consultation meetings I attended, from the very first slide that went up on the board, this was a done deal. They took no one’s concerns on board whatsoever. It was set in stone”.

Still, Ferry says the Donegal League might yet choose to go their own way and there are quite a number of others he says that might also decide to follow suit.

Pressed on whether such a move might hamper future FAI funding for Donegal League clubs, Ferry said: “I can tell you categorically now, Donegal League clubs, schoolboy clubs receive zero funding from the FAI, never have.

“The only funding we get is through the Sports Capital and that has nothing to do with the FAI. Unlike the GAA, the FAI don’t assist with funding. To be fair to the GAA, if there is a new development in say Killybegs or Dungloe, they’ll get some funding from their governing body. That’s not the case with us.

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“We don’t have to toe the line. I think what you will find, and I know the Carlow and Kerry Leagues are also not happy about it, you could quite possibly see clubs willing to go it on their own with unaffiliated leagues. That’s a real prospect if this does come to pass.

“The other point I’ll make, one of the strongest leagues in the country, the DDSL, are going against this. This is supposed to come into schoolboys football in 2025. So watch this space. If they don’t go ahead with it it might fall by the wayside. They tried this before and it didn’t happen, it was abandoned then either".

Diarmuid O’Brien, PRO for the Inishowen League, can see some clubs failing to meet the demands of the seismic redirection and he also envisages volunteers being overwhelmed and opting out.

“We would have surveyed the clubs in our leagues and they are one hundred percent against it,” he told DonegalLive.

“The effect this is going to have on pitches, the maintenance of pitches, the impact on referees in particular.

“You look at the Inishowen landscape alone. On the Monday, Wednesday and Friday, you have underage boys.

“Underage girls and senior ladies are out Tuesday and Thursday. You have underage again on the Saturday and Junior out on the Sunday.

“Our referees and club volunteers are looking at being out seven days of the week. It’s just not sustainable or practical.

“In the more rural areas, our lads are involved in fishing and farming, industries that are at their busiest that time of year.

“Holidays, examinations and there will be a large percentage also involved with their local Gaelic football teams at that time of year.

“The point I’ll make is that the FAI always insisted on a 65 percent majority on previous votes. But they reduced this one back to the simple majority.

“And the way the general assembly is structured, amateur, junior and intermediate is only one-third of the chamber.

A lot of the ones that voted for this, the colleges, the defence forces the professional footballers of Ireland, and the National League underage sides - they would have had a big representation on the voting of this.

“And it’s a vote that doesn’t actually affect them which is disappointing from our facet of the game.

“There is no doubt about it, this is going to have a catastrophic impact and some clubs will go to the wall because of this”.