Kerry county board reject claims that clubs are being denied access to players

Kerry football is big on tradition.

From the sanctity of the kick pass to the county champions nominating the county captain - the Kingdom have a long and proud history of preserving how things have always been done. However, the fierce pressure to keep up with the likes of back-to-back All-Ireland champions and perennial challengers Mayo has seen Kerry adapt to survive. Three years ago the county were forced to defend barring the public from attending the county senior football training in Fitzgerald Stadium - a move that became easier to defend when a Donegal 'spy' was found up a tree a year later. Now it has been claimed that a long-standing arrangement between the county set-up and clubs has been done away with. Before this year, Kerry clubs could rely on their county players returning for one if not two early rounds of the league, to help prepare for the opening round of the club championship, which is a straight knockout. A source told SportsJOE: "We'd usually have county players for the first and possibly third county league games but this year we have no access to them until club championship." https://twitter.com/SportsJOE_GAA/status/821732555879751680 The club championship is separate to the Kerry senior championship, which includes divisional sides, but is still considered an important competition. In the case of a divisional side winning the senior championship, the club champion represents Kerry in the AIB Munster club championship Another Kerry GAA source told SportsJOE that clubs have been "unofficially informed that no member of the Kerry senior football team will be available for club activity" until the first round of the championship and will not play in the league until round 11. This effectively excludes county panel members from involvement in the league. While the condensing of the Allianz League will impact on the county players' availability, clubs are unhappy that their county stars will not be togging out ahead of the opening round of the club championship. Kerry county board PRO John O'Leary told SportsJOE that a motion brought to the county convention by Rathmore, calling for more league games to be played in summer, has been a factor. No grievances were aired at a fixtures on Tuesday night, according to O'Leary. "Bottom line is we had a 20-minute discussion on fixtures. Every club present, not one person spoke up about the county league," said the PRO. "There has been no change to the situation (of county players' availability) that I am aware of."

Eamonn Fitzmaurice's Kerry footballers begin their Allianz League Division 1 campaign away to Donegal on  February 5th.