O’Reilly urging all leagues to vote against Calendar Football at General Assembly meeting

Tonight night is a pivotal night in the history of Irish football, a night that could change the landscape of soccer in this country forever, as the FAI General Assembly votes on whether or not to implement summer soccer or calendar football as the FAI refer to it as. Calendar Football, which is part of the Football Pathways Plan proposed by Marc Canham, would see all soccer played in a calendar year, and not the September-May season that most grassroots leagues play, a decision that could have massive ramifications for Irish football. 

At the moment, leagues are free to run their seasons when they want but this new proposal would seek to change that. 100% of clubs in Carlow have voted against it, 85% of clubs in Leinster have voted against it, and it has been met with opposition at different workshops nationwide.

Following a joint statement released by the Carlow and District League and the Carlow Juveniles League last week which reinforced their stance on Calendar Football, speaking to the Carlow Soccer Podcast this week, Carlow League Secretary Brian O’Reilly explained that they will continue to push for a no vote in line with the mandate given to them by all 28 clubs in Carlow. 

“It’s going to be very interesting this vote on Thursday night. Obviously we can only speak for ourselves but one of the things we want to get across is that this is not the league demanding this mandate, this is what our clubs want. So we as an executive body have to represent our clubs. Our clubs overwhelmingly, all 28 of them, don’t want this. If we had a situation where 15 didn’t want it and 13 did, then it would be different but all 28 clubs in Carlow at both Juvenile and Junior level do not want this.” 

 He added that it would not work in areas like Carlow and is urging all leagues to vote against the proposal. 

“The important thing to understand is that in small leagues or small areas like Carlow, it wouldn’t work playing your season between January and December. The FAI doesn’t seem to understand that this is what people want. We can only hope that the majority vote on Thursday is categorically for a no. Other leagues like the Kildare League have gone to summer soccer, and that’s their choice, and I admire them in a way and am jealous that they can have midweek matches but it works for them, and they had the choice to do that. If this is a yes vote, the choice is removed. We’re asking all the leagues out there to please vote no, so we still have the right to choice, including those leagues who currently play summer soccer. It won’t affect them if this is a yes or a no vote, they will still be able to do what they want. The leagues who operate in the current schools calendar are the ones who are going to suffer.” 

The decisions for a lot of the clubs in Carlow is down to the competition with the GAA. Moving to Calendar Football has the potential to ruin the grassroots game, something O’Reilly is very aware of. “Yet the FAI will tell you the opposite and there are people who will tell you the opposite. Our social media statement got some comments from people telling us we were living in the dark ages, that Irish soccer is in the doldrums and it will stay in the doldrums until they move to calendar football. People in the rural areas who have been around long enough know that the opposite will happen to what the FAI think will happen. The FAI think that this is the solution to all their problems, that people will play on better pitches, we know that’s not true, look at the Irish summer the last two years. We know if we go head to head with the GAA, particularly at underage level, people will have to choose and for years people have been saying you need to have teenagers and children playing both sports and that won’t be possible if it’s calendar season football. Also, if you look at it, this is something that works for England, Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland, all the big leagues in Europe operate from August to May. Why can’t we do what the rest of Europe is doing? I think the whole thing is being really badly dealt with and there could be a really big split in the FAI depending on what way the vote goes.”

 The General Assembly is made up of 135 voters from across the sport who vote on all key decisions regarding Irish football and it would need a majority of 68 votes to pass. Every League of Ireland side in the Premier Division has two votes, every side in Division 1 has one each, the sides in the Ladies Premier Division have two, the LFA have 20 votes, the Munster FA has 16 votes, the Ulster FA have six votes, the SFAI representatives have 30 votes, the FAI Schools have six votes, colleges have two votes, the Irish Soccer Referees Society have two votes, the Defence Forces have two votes, and Sport for All have two votes. O’Reilly says that the amount of League of Ireland votes is concerning. 

“In Carlow we’re lucky, because Noel Jordan is President of the LFA we get two votes, Noel gets one and I get one. John Collins or Bob Howson or whoever the representative for the Juveniles League is will also get one. The concern here is that the League of Ireland have so many votes and then the likes of a DDSL which is the biggest schoolboys league in the country, catering for 50,000 children, has only one vote. The League of Ireland has so many votes but they’re already in the calendar season. It’s like the election, there’s been people out canvassing and doing counts. It’s going to be a very very close vote. It’s not looking overwhelmingly either way, it looks like it could come down to a couple of votes.” 

Speaking ahead of their must win clash against New Oak on Sunday, Crettyard manager, Criostoir Maher also voiced his opposition to the proposal, saying it would ruin a club like Crettyard. 

“As far as Crettyard’s view on it, it’s a no go for us. We’ll always be for winter soccer, summer soccer could kill a club like ours because we’re very Gaelic Football orientated, especially for a club that relies on homegrown players. We’ve a lot of Gaelic Footballers and the way it is for a club like Crettyard, the Gaelic players will always choose Gaelic over soccer during Gaelic season.”