The GAA's Football Development Committee reminds An Fear Rua of one of those builders you get into your house these days who half fixes the thing you asked him to, but leaves two other things broken in the process and blithely says: 'Dere, dat'll hould her for a while Boss …' as he disappears out your door, never to be seen again…

Ah, you must know the kind of builder of we mean … The ones who leave cigarette holes in the good carpet, cigarette butts in the wash hand basin and big gaping holes in the plaster wherever they ply their trusty tools or even thrust their pliable tools.

These gloomy thoughts were prompted by AFR's initial perusal of the proposals for 'reform' of the National Football League and championships published by the GAA's Football Development Committee. The proposals involve scrapping the existing championship and League formats, effectively making the championship a league-based system, while still retaining provincial finals and semi-finals. As one of the Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds stalwarts remarked in the shnug of Ma Molloy's famous drinking emporium when he heard the news: ''Tis neither fish, fowl nor good red meat …'. Or, as another one of our smart lads remarked: 'A camel is a horse designed by the Football Development Committee !'

The whole mixed-up edifice reminds An Fear Rua of one of those gerry-built houses with so many additions, flat roofs, back kitchens, extensions and conservatories added on that it is in grave danger of toppling over and collapsing. Of course, some of the 'meeja' commentators who have been slagging off the League for the past couple of years - for the want of something better to write about on a slack day - have been exulting over the proposed changes. Young Mr. Keith Duggan, for example, of the Old Lady of D'Olier Street ('The Irish Times' for anyone not in the know …) described it as ' incredibly appealing', saying 'so absolute is the move to change that it seems incongruous that it has been composed by an official branch of the GAA … '

Well, boys-a-dear, what a backhanded compliment to the lads and lassies of Ceannárus from young Mr Duggan. Decoded, what he really means is: 'If it's from the GAA, and if it has official Association backing ..,. then it can't be good'. Of all the insensitive, arrogant nonsense. An Fear Rua's old pal, the late, lamented Brendan Behan - born within sight of Croke Park, by the way - had the right of it when he described an industrial dispute of the Fifties in 'The Irish Times' as the National Union of Journalists against the National Journal of Unionists. They say a leopard never changes its spots, and all that .…

Young Duggan goes on: 'the cruelty of the knockout system will be a thing of the past…' ' Arrah, dear God help us ! The knockout system is the essence of the GAA, asserts An Fear Rua. The whole point of the provincial championships should be that you train and prepare as best you can, you proudly pull on your county's jersey and you do your utmost on the day. If you're beaten, you stretch out your hand to your opponent, wish him luck in the next round and swap jerseys. Shortly after, you head for home and you resolve to do better next year. Mollycoddling players with back doors, front doors and North/South leagues will ruin the cornerstone of the GAA, the provincial championships.

There's no point in An Fear Rua getting' into all the permutations and combinations of what might or might not happen under the new system. He'll leave that to some of the young buckos on the daily newspapers who are dab hands at filling up acres of space with analysis. To take one example, AFR has seen scenarios where a one-point defeat by, say, a Leinster side like Carlow could usher a team like Cork or Kerry out of the closing stages of the Munster Championship, and so on.

We are told the players will like the new system. Well, maybe some elite inter-county players may have a softer life if this is implemented, but the ordinary 'five eight' who aspires only to play for his club may take another view. And, as the 'ofeeshal' GAA keeps reminding us: 'The club is the cornerstone of d'Association'. God be with the days of the Rackard brothers, when they rose at five in the morning to milk the cows in Ballinlug, near Killann in the County Wexford, then threw up a few cocks of hay in the fields - all the while fasting for early Mass and holy communion - and afterwards cycled all the way to New Ross and back, in the meantime defeating some bunch of nonentities like Carlow or Laois. Or even the great 'Ringey' himself who, with his brother and some others, cycled all the way to Cork and back to play in an inter-county hurling game. 'Dem were players', asserts An Fear Rua …

Of course, the real agenda behind all this is money. An IR£5 million carrot is being dangled in front of the so-called 'weaker' counties and the provincial councils to entice them to abandon the club and the parish and support these proposals. With money like that sloshing around, be sure that even more commercial interests will come out of the GAA woodwork and the ordinary fan will be further cast aside. How long more before we see the so-called 'corporate boxes' in provincial venues with areas closed off to the ordinary fan ? And not too far behind will be the rising decibels of elite county players demanding to be paid like professionals, because of the 'gruelling ten-game campaigns' they will have to endure. Once that happens, it's 'goodnight' to the GAA as we know it and love it today.

But even the financial 'carrot' is not all it is cracked up to be. The Football Development Committee in their wisdom got an economist, no less, (and a 'Thrinity' man to boot) to do the sums and advise them. The economist was no less a man than the former Dublin All Ireland football winner, Robbie Kelleher. But sure, poor Robbie's back pocket calculator must have been damaged in one of those heavy tackles from Jack, Ogie, Spillane or one of the other Kerry lads in the Seventies. Already, Cork County Board has challenged what they see as a gross miscalculation of their 'increased' revenue under the proposals. If the provincial councils are not careful they might end up earning the description once applied to Ireland's small farmers by the late Fine Gael leader, James Dillon, when he was Minister for Agriculture: 'They sold their souls for penny rolls, and lumps of hairy bacon ….' Indeed, An Fear Rua is reminded of one of the very few wise remarks made by 'Charvet' J Haughey when he was Taoiseach: 'An economist is someone you send for to give a figure on a piece of paper and then you send him away again …'

AFR greatly fears the GAA will rue the day this hybrid monster was set loose on the playing fields of Ireland. Coming towards the end of the series, many fans will be attending games with an 'ofeeshal' programme in one hand and a pocket calculator in the other, trying to work out who will meet whom in the next round. The current championship setup has the pre-eminent virtues of being simple and clear-cut. These are values that should not be blithely cast aside for a complex, convoluted system with an in-built bias against the so-called 'weaker' counties.

The awesome splendour of the new format has not, of course, tempted the Kilkenny County Board to field a football team in either the League or the championship. New York and London will, however, be taking part, once again delivering on the GAA's aim of a 33-county Republic ! An Fear Rua supposes it's always a good thing to have a county to spare over the traditional number, just in case the day dawns when somewhere like Clare - God between us and all harm - finally erodes into the Atlantic.

As I said as the outset, these proposals bear a resemblance to a gerry-built flat roof extension to some poor misfortunate's bungalow. An Fear Rua trusts the lads (and some lassies) doin