Ed Ricketts
Active Member
2024 Ulster Minor Football Championship
The Championship will be played during the months of April and May, and will be organised in a ’round-robin’ format with a group of five and a group of four, with teams playing the other teams in their group once.Section A: Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Monaghan, Tyrone
Section B: Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Derry
There will be a National Tier 2 and Tier 3 knockout competitions for counties who do not progress to the latter stages of Provincial Championships. The top team in each group would progress to the Electric Ireland Ulster MFC Semi Finals. The second and third place teams would criss-cross and play each other in two Quarter Finals. The winners of these two Quarter-Finals would go into the Semi-Finals.
The two Quarter-Final losers would be eliminated from the Ulster Championship and enter the National Tier 2 competition at the Preliminary Quarter Final stage. The two teams that lose in Ulster Semi-Finals will go to National Tier 2 Quarter Finals.
Finally, the three teams that finished in fourth and fifth positions would be eliminated from the Ulster Championship and enter the National Tier 3 competition. The two provincial finalists will progress to the All-Ireland Tier 1 Quarter Finals.
2024 All Ireland Minor Football Championship
A vote at GAA Congress in September 2023 approved the introduction of tiered knockout competitions as part of the All-Ireland Minor Football Championship.
Tier 1 features the four provincial champions playing the four provincial runners up in the All-Ireland quarter-finals. Those pairings are decided on a provincial rota system initially determined by Central Council and provincial finals cannot be repeated at the quarter-final stage.
The tier 2 knockout competition comprises 11 teams: one from Munster, four teams from both Leinster and Ulster and two from Connacht. Leinster and Ulster are each represented by their two losing semi-finalists as well as two beaten quarter-finalists. The third and fourth placed teams in Connacht are also included. The semi-finalists in Leinster and Ulster along with the third-placed team in Connacht receive byes to the quarter-finals where they are joined by three preliminary quarter-final winners.
In tier 3, there are 13 teams made up of five from Leinster, three from both Munster and Ulster, and two from Connacht. In Connacht’s case, their fifth-placed team play London for a place in the quarter-finals.
The tiered All-Ireland series runs over an eight-week period from mid-May to the start of July. New cups are to be commissioned for the tier 2 and 3 competitions.
