Colm O'Rourke is not optimistic that that the Fixtures Calendar Review Task Force's report will result in meaningful change because the whole structure of inter-county football depends on the "dead duck" provincial championships.
The task force, which O’Rourke wanted to be a part of, is due to issue a report this month but has been called a "Trojan horse" to provide the illusion of willingness to change by the Club Players Association, who withdrew from the process last week.
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All-Ireland finalists Dublin and Kerry will pursue 10 and eight-in-a-row respectively in their provinces next year but the GAA's response to lopsided local contests has been to introduce a Tier 2 championship for those eliminated early, rather than contemplate reforming the now 130-year-old provincial system.
Speaking on the RTÉ GAA podcast, two-time All-Ireland winner O’Rourke, who works as a school principal, said: "Leadership is about leading and it’s about putting radical proposals forward.
"In my job I can listen to all the teachers in the school but, ultimately, I have to make decisions about what is the best way forward and hope to bring everybody with me.
"That’s what this group needs to do, they need to be radical or they are redundant.
"They are not going to be radical because the elephant in the room is always the provincial championships, which are a dead duck.
"Until somebody has the bravery to say 'we’re going to start from scratch’, we are not going to make any progress.
"The GAA cannot go on the way it is.
"Anybody who thinks that you run a football championship with 25 teams who have no chance from the very beginning, where you have Dublin continuing to monopolise, where the population shifts are so great that the old structures are not fit for purpose anymore [is mistaken]."
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