U21 football likely to start later in the season next year

The divisional U21 football championships are set to commence later in the Cork GAA calendar in 2026.

The divisional football championships at U21 level over the last couple of years were played in the month of February with the county series taking place later in the year. Now it's likely that this grade will get going from July onwards starting from next year.

The timing of the U21 football schedule has been a hot topic over the last couple of years with Ray O’Mahony, the now former Cork U20 football manager, regularly voicing his concerns about playing club U21 football championship games in the second month of the year.

Speaking to The Echo back in August, O’Mahony had hoped a solution would be found.

“Why we have to run the club U21 football in February, I still can’t get my head around it,” the Dublin native said.

"I understand the importance of U21. I was with Éire Óg when we won a couple of Mid-Cork titles at U21 level on a team that featured Colm O’Callaghan and John Cooper. It has been mistreated, and that has been publicly said previously, and I know a lot of clubs wanted it back. They got it back, but it seemed to be very piecemeal together.

“February was three weekends where we could not have challenge games against other counties, essentially. So Cork, I’ll put on record, were the only county running U21 club championships between January and April and I’ve researched that.

“You’re not getting the opportunity to play any of the northern teams in February, or even the Connacht teams, because there’s club championship. I raised it several times with the county board and I was getting nowhere with it. So we had two choices, take it on the chin, or walk away. We took it on the chin.

“The key stakeholders here need to sit down, leave egos behind them, and it needs to get into the master plan. It needs to go into the master plan because it’s a key ingredient for player development.” 

Meanwhile, the unseeded section of the divisional/colleges McCarthy Insurance Group Premier SFC is likely to start in April next year as opposed to June, but that’s subject to entries.

That particular competition has been under pressure in recent campaigns with divisions opting out for different reasons.

It's hoped that by bringing it forward that it would make it more accommodating for players as opposed to starting it during the summer.

It’s expected that UCC will bypass the unseeded and seeded section and progress to the preliminary quarter-final of the championship proper against the Tadhg Crowley Cup winners.

Duhallow are the holders of that competition.

Previously, the Tadgh Crowley Cup champions would proceed straight to the championship proper.

Finally, another attempt to restore media access to Cork County Board monthly meetings with delegates was shot down at the monthly gathering at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Tuesday night.

At the beginning of 2024, Cork restricted the attendance of journalists at the monthly meetings.

A motion to allow the media back in was ruled out of order back in February.