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'The world has changed and so should we' | Former GAA president on LGFA-GAA combining

Former GAA president Liam O'Neill joined OTB AM to call for the LGFA and GAA to join together. Th...



Football

'The world has changed and so should we' | Former GAA president on LGFA-GAA combining

Former GAA president Liam O'Neill joined OTB AM to call for the LGFA and GAA to join together.

The issue is in the news after Cork v Galway on Sunday was rescheduled at the very last minute, leaving the players with less than ten minutes to warm up.

Having proposed the idea during his presidency, O'Neill explained why he wanted to see it happen.

LGFA

"I was reared with seven girls, families are mixed. Men are living with women - we are not different creatures. We are all part of one family," O'Neill said.

"The modern family wants the child looked after, and we are doing that very well with our 'go' games up until the age of 11.

"We are looking after boys and girls all across the country. It goes after that because girls are not allowed to play with boys from 12 on, for medical reasons.

"The modern family wants the whole family looked after. The modern family wants the woman of the house, if she wants to play Gaelic games, then she has the right to.

"Yes, there would be difficulties; everyone can't have the pitch at 7:30pm on Tuesday, so there would have to be an accommodation, there would have to be work done."

'The world has changed'

O'Neill was keen to stress that this is not an insurmountable issue.

"But what I am saying is, it could have been done six years ago and it can be done now. But I do want to emphasise that I am not castigating anyone in the LGFA for not doing it at that time - that was their decision and they had the right to do it.

"But now is different; the world has changed in the last six years than it did in the previous 60. We have to go with that.

"Yes, it would be difficult and there would be problems that would be difficult to surmount but we can surmount them.

"We have the brightest young population in Europe at the moment. If we sat down and set a task to come up with a structure, I can guarantee you that they would come up with it."

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