Gaelic Players Association chief Tom Parsons is pushing for certainty ‘in the next week or two’ about the exact shape of the 2026 GAA season.
As things stand, a return to a collective training date for inter-county teams hasn’t been confirmed, with uncertainty around pre-season competitions, which look set to return for another season at least, and when they might begin.
There is also the tinderbox issue of attempts to introduce seeding, based on 2025 National League results, for the 2026 Munster football championship.
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This has been approved at provincial council level, but Parsons described the move, which should mean more Kerry v Cork Munster finals, as ‘opportunistic, financially based and really frustrating’, and he couldn’t rule out affected counties potentially withdrawing their services in protest.
Parsons queried whether a Congress vote may actually be required on the issue, as the Munster Council would be linking their competition to the National League, meaning ‘teams are approaching a National League differently now’.
The former Mayo midfielder said that, at the very least, seeding should be postponed until 2027, so that Munster’s counties can start the 2026 league knowing exactly what is at stake.
Parsons described the overall air of uncertainty as unhelpful and revealed that while he suggested ‘two return to training dates’ at the last Central Council meeting, ‘there was no vote taken’ due to other matters taking precedence on the day.
“I’m working with the GAA to get this nailed in the next week or two,” said Parsons.
“Players and management teams need certainty over what’s happening. It’s a bit of a waiting game the next week or two to see what 2026 will look like.
“In the long run, it is good that there will be a vote in Congress to make sure that the first competitive game (from 2027 on) is the National League.
“Hopefully we get to a place where we have a seven-month inter-county window, where the club is protected, the split season is protected. And there’s no more talk of going to the end of August or going to September.”
Next February’s Annual Congress will vote on a motion to shove the All-Ireland SFC final back into August, from 2027, and to move the hurling decider to the last weekend of July.
This would extend the current seven-month inter-county window though Parsons said that, long-term, the GPA would like ‘the National League to start in mid-February and claw back those two weeks’.
He acknowledged some positives with a slightly extended inter-county window, noting that it should reduce the need for teams playing three competitive games on consecutive weekends.
“To find that gap week where you’re not putting 2,500 players through three games in a row was another player welfare trade-off,” he said.
The GPA has consistently called for a six-week pre-season, along with a Christmas break, before players return to competitive action. With no pre-season competitions at the beginning of 2026, December 7 last was pencilled in for training to return. But with competitions like the McKenna Cup in Ulster now likely to be played in early 2027, the return to collective training date may need to be pulled back well into November.
“We cannot have a McKenna Cup game on the first or second of January and be telling players that they’re back on the second of December,” claimed Parsons, who equally acknowledged that ‘the thoughts of returning to real gruelling pre-season training in mid-November, I just don’t think it’s good mentally, physically or emotionally for the players’.
There is the further possibility that some provincial councils could stage pre-season competitions, whilst others mightn’t.
“It’s disappointing, I wanted this all boxed off at the last Central Council meeting,” said Parsons.
“There was a huge number of items on the agenda with the FRC and the proposal to bring a new length of the season to Congress. So there was no vote taken (on the return to training date).”
Ulster Council secretary Brian McAvoy was critical of the GPA around the return to training issue last winter, suggesting they didn’t put a spotlight on those who broke the rules and returned ahead of schedule.
“It needs joint responsibility, (not) cheap remarks saying the GPA didn’t police it,” said Parsons.
“I’m not opening up gates, I’m not appointing management teams. Counties are doing that. They’re organising food and they’re organising pitches.
“It needs everybody to do it and the players to have the strength to push back the managers and say, ‘Look, we’re not training’.
“But we can’t even go there with certainty yet. Because what’s the return to training date? Are these pre-season competitions coming back? Certainty and alignment are really important.”
