Central Council delegates were "unanimous" in their desire to change the format of the All-Ireland football championship, according to GAA president John Horan.
Two separate proposals for a Tier 2 All-Ireland senior football championship will go before a Special Congress at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on 19 October, with a view to implementation in time for the 2020 Championship.
Speaking at the draw for Round 4 of the All-Ireland Football qualifiers, Horan told Morning Ireland listeners that there was a huge appetite among the delegates for change.
"We brought this to Central Council last November and there was very strong opinion then that we should push on with it, but we stalled it for a while just to have further discussion on the matter," he said.
"We brought two proposals to Central Council last Saturday and the feeling in the room was unanimous when I put it to a straw poll; everybody was in favour and nobody demurred from the fact that we should go ahead with tier two.
"Some people are of the opinion that we should have waited until the Fixture Review Group bring in their report, but in actual fact what this does is it gives them the opportunity to deal in a very fixed manner.
"It gives us the opportunity to run it off next year."
Horan also revealed that the decision to move the All-Ireland club senior championship finals to January is the first step towards running the competition off in the calendar year.
GAA president John Horan discusses the move to January for the All-Ireland club championship finals and a potential tier-two inter-county championship on @morningireland pic.twitter.com/gcPCzODG52
— RTÉ GAA (@RTEgaa) July 1, 2019
Horan said the decision was based on the expense incurred by clubs given the lengthy nature of a successful season and also the fact that inter-county panels are without access to victorious club players for the early rounds of the league.
"We decided to move it forward, but unfortunately we weren't able to move it the full way as provincial and county final programmes were already planned. The move to January is the first stage and next year we would hope to move it back further."
