EXCLUSIVE: County Boards reveal if their teams have been training or not

To determine the inter-county teams in breach of GAA guidelines for the return to training, Off The Ball contacted each county board that had not already expressed their status publicly. 

Of those county boards Off The Ball sought for comment, not one confirmed that their inter-county teams had been training before the 14 September guideline set by the GAA.

With the exception of Dublin and Armagh who have yet to engage with our requests for comment, it was only Limerick and Tyrone who chose to respond while refusing to make any comment on the matter.

Meanwhile, Mayo revealed that they "have already outlined our position to Croke Park on this matter [and] will take our guidance from Croke Park if any further update is issued." It was a stance similarly adopted by Kerry.

Across the country's remaining counties (26), the repeated message was that no inter-county teams would be returning, or had returned, to training before the 14 September guideline.

In certain instances where a county player's club commitments may have finished before the set date, there was a sense among a number of representatives that a return to inter-county training could be on the cards. However, this was always with the understanding that club commitments would take priority.

Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

During his appearance on Off The Ball last week, Michael Duignan, chairman of the Offaly GAA county board, explained that neither the county's Gaelic footballers nor hurlers would be returning to collective training before the 14 September guideline.

Stephen Barker, chairman of the Derry GAA county board, similarly explained that they too would be upholding the GAA's guideline despite the fact that the association's President John Horan confirmed that there would be no sanction for county teams found to be in breach of their ruling.

After a meeting of GAA county officials that took place on Friday morning, it became apparent that the association were planning to reverse their position on refusing to sanction inter-county teams found to be in breach of the 14 September guideline.

It is understood that in that conference call featuring county officials, some admitted that their inter-county teams had in fact been training across recent weeks.

Although the vast majority of county boards contacted by Off The Ball informed us that their teams had not breached the guideline, it should be noted that before details of the GAA's apparent reversal on sanctions emerged, an initial deadline of Tuesday, 7 July had been set for county boards to respond to our request for comment.

With this in mind, we remain open to any representatives from the county boards of Dublin or Armagh who may wish to clarify with us their standing on this matter.

Here is a breakdown of how each county board responded to an inquiry from Off The Ball asking whether their inter-county teams would be returning to training before the 14 September guideline set by the GAA:

Connacht:

Galway | No
Leitrim | No
Mayo | See above
Roscommon | No
Sligo | No

Leinster:

Carlow | No
Dublin*
Kildare | No
Kilkenny | No
Laois | No
Longford | No
Louth | No
Meath | No
Offaly | No
Westmeath | No
Wexford | No 
Wicklow | No

Munster:

Clare | No
Cork | No
Kerry | See above
Limerick | "No comment"
Tipperary | No
Waterford | No

Ulster:

Antrim | No
Armagh*
Cavan | No
Derry | No
Donegal | No
Down | No
Fermanagh | No
Monaghan | No
Tyrone | "No comment"

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Additional reporting - Conor Breslin & Tommy Rooney

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