Certain inter-county managers may have to curtail their habits of naming dummy teams in the run up to Allianz League games, with the GAA proposing punishments of a fine and a touchline ban for coaches who fail to name their team until the last minute.
Managers such as Dublin's Jim Gavin, Monaghan's Malachy O'Rourke and Declan Bonner have, in the past, given erroneous line-ups for their respective teams.
In order to tackle this problem, the CCCC have introduced a new regulation for the league whereby counties who do not submit their 15 starting players and 11 substitutes to the officials 20 minutes or more before the start of a game will be fined €500 per individual breached and the manager involved may also have to serve a one match touchline ban.
This new directive will be a welcome one for broadcasters such as eir Sport and TG4, who have been left embarrassed in the past when their line-ups do not correspond with the actual 15 players on the pitch, and Croke Park are also reportedly peeved with the wrong line-ups constantly being read out by their PA.
Former GAA director general Páraic Duffy addressed the problem of dummy teams in his annual report last year, acknowledging the frustration among fans and media for managers naming fake line-ups:
It has got to the point that little notice is now taken of announced team line-outs.
Changes of status from starting player to substitute and vice versa within the 26 are now the norm and it is not unusual to see two or three alterations in personnel to the starting line-out.
I received one excellent suggestion during the year from the former Laois player Billy Sheehan as to how this problem can be addressed. If a change is made to the starting 15 after the Thursday morning deadline, that change should be made to count as one of the six substitutions that a team may make during the game. Team managers would think twice before knowingly naming an incorrect starting 15 if it reduced their options for substitution during the game.
