Row erupts over ‘indefensible’ Munster football seeding changes that favour Kerry and Cork
Clare football chairman Kieran Keating has hit out at the “indefensible” call to alter the seeding format for the Munster championship in 2026.
The Munster council voted through a change to the system on Thursday evening, announcing that the highest ranking two teams from the Allianz Football League were to be on opposite sides of the semi-final draw, applicable for the next three years.
So in 2026, as the top two sides, Kerry and Cork will be placed on opposite sides of the draw.
Clare, Tipperary and Waterford all voted against the proposed changed, but it is believed that Limerick voted in favour, despite indications from players and management that they were going to vote against it.
Clare GAA’s Munster delegate confirmed on @ClareFM that it was @LimerickCLG who voted in favour of Munster GAA’s proposal to reintroduce seeding to the Munster SFC.
Absolutely stunned by that
Keating is also angry with Limerick for this, and told Clare FM on Friday morning that the change is an injustice.
“It’s disappointing that it’s been introduced now in this sort of short order based on positions in a league that’s already finished before the decision has arrived at,” he said.
“That’s rather unjust and indefensible, really. You know that there’s certainly an injustice in that as we would see it anyway and I think as any right-minded person would see it.”
Went and looked at the stats. The results say this actually makes sense. Cork have outperformed Clare since 2017 in League, Munster & All Ireland. For Munster, whoever meets Kerry rarely beat them, the only team who have in that period is Cork. So this actually makes sense pic.twitter.com/E9AbWRXJmM
— Mike Duggan (@mikepduggan) August 1, 2025
On Limerick’s support, Keating added: “Our understanding was that the management of the Limerick senior football team and the players were against the motion yet their delegate last night voted in favour of it.
“That’s probably their business at this stage to figure that one out but at the end of the day we were defeated because we didn’t have the Limerick support.”
The schedule has also been announced for the Munster hurling championship, with a rematch of the All-Ireland final between Tipperary and Cork in the first week at Thurles, while Clare will host Waterford.
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