Club vote through changes to the structure of the Kildare Football Championships
Athy won the 2025 Kildare Senior Football Championship but there will be changes to the structures before they begin the defence of their title Photo: ©INPHO/James Lawlor
Changes to the structure of the Kildare Senior, Intermediate and Junior Football Championships were voted through by the clubs at February’s County Board meeting on Tuesday evening.
It means the introduction for the first time of a ‘B’ Championship in the Senior and Intermediate grades.
Both the Senior and Intermediate Championships will run on the same format.
There will be no preliminary round and instead, teams will be drawn into four groups. For the first time, there will be seedings with the four semi-finalists from the previous year drawn into separate groups, in the Intermediate the seeds will be the three semi-finalists from the previous year still in the grade plus the team relegated from Senior.
After three rounds in the groups, there will be no more preliminary quarter-finals and instead, the top two in each will progress to the quarter-finals of the regular Championship and proceed as normal from there.
The bottom two teams in each will move into the quarter-finals of the newly formed ‘B’ Championship and contest for that title. The four losers of the ‘B’ Championship quarter-finals will then contest the relegation play-offs with one team eventually dropping into the Intermediate/Junior grades.
There will also be changes to the Junior Championship. Again, there will be four teams seeded here, the previous year’s semi-finalists and the team relegated from Intermediate.
The first three of those out of the draw will be placed in separate groups and the fourth team out will also be placed in Group 1, and the remaining eight teams will then be drawn into those groups.
The top two teams in each of the three groups will progress to the next phase. There will be a draw between the three group winners with two going straight into the semi-finals. The remaining group winner along with the three runners-up will make up two quarter-finals.
The third and fourth placed teams in the original groups would then compete in a similar format in the Junior ‘A’ Championship.
The changes come into immediate effect and will be used in this year’s Championships.
