THE premier club football competition in the county could be in line for a major revamp next year following the County Football Board’s upcoming convention.

The Galway senior football championship may adopt a ‘Champions League’ style group format – along the lines of the county’s hurling championship – if a motion put forward by four clubs is accepted by delegates next week.

On Monday night, the option of introducing group stages to a new-look football championship will be proposed by Salthill /Knocknacarra, Oranmore/Maree, Dunmore McHales and Monivea/Abbey. The proposal would mean replacing the current ‘open-draw’ for first round championship matches and ‘back-door’ knock-out matches, with a group stages system.

There would be three groups of five teams, and one group of six (to accommodate NUIG) with each team playing each other once in the group stages and the top two teams in each group advancing to the championship quarter-finals.

But in a separate motion, the Football Board will be looking for delegates to maintain the status quo of an open draw championship format and revert to the system of promotion and relegation that prevailed in 2008 and for years previous to that, whereby the bottom two teams in the senior B league were relegated to intermediate, with the intermediate league and championship winners earning promotion.

This system was the norm in Galway for years but was changed for the 2009 championship after the Connacht Council’s fixture monitoring group found Galway was in contravention of the General Rules of the GAA.

As a result, this year the Galway club competitions had to be run on a ‘one up, one down promotion and relegation system between intermediate and senior. The norm across the country, in compliance of the rules, is that promotion and relegation should be from the championship only (and not the league as was the case in Galway pre-2008) and only one club (not two as was the case in Galway pre-2008) should be promoted and relegated from senior and intermediate per year.

After making representation to the Connacht Council, the Board has been given the go-ahead to revert to the old format, and a motion allowing two intermediate clubs – the league and championship winners – to be promoted with two senior B teams relegated from the league, will be debated and voted on this Monday night at Loughgeorge.

It was this forced change of rule from last year, that has rendered the remaining intermediate league matches futile, with only pride and not promotion at stake – many clubs have complained that the 2009 intermediate and junior league campaigns lost their competitive edge due to the absence of an incentive.

“The Board will be looking to go back to the system of promotion that was in place in 2008 where the winner of the intermediate league and championship would be promoted and two senior B teams would be relegated from the league. The whole reason behind this is to keep the league competitive,” Football Board Secretary, Seamus O’Grady told Tribune Sport this week.

O’Grady said the motion would also provide for a similar promotion/relegation format to be adopted at junior A level, allowing the junior A league and championship winners to be promoted by relegating two intermediate teams from the league.

For more details about the convention and the interview with Seamus O’Grady see page 55 of this week’s Tribune.