Editing Gaelic football (section)

==Competition structure==
{{Refimprovesection|date=April 2024}}
[[Image:Children playing Gaelic football Ajax Ontario.jpg|thumb|Children participating in a game of Gaelic football]]
Gaelic sports at all levels are amateur, in the sense that the athletes, even those playing at an elite level, do not receive payment for their performance.

The main competitions at all levels of Gaelic football are the '''League''' and the '''Championship'''. Of these, it is the Championship (a knock-out tournament) that tends to attain the most prestige.

The basic unit of each game is organised at the club level, which is usually arranged on a [[Parish (administrative division)|parochial]] basis. Local clubs compete against other clubs in their county intending to win the '''County Club Championship''' at senior, junior, or intermediate levels (for adults) or under-21, minor or under-age levels (for children). A club may field more than one team, for example, a club may field a team at the senior level and a "seconds" team at a junior or intermediate level. This format is laid out in the table below:

{| class="wikitable"
|+Adult levels
!Name
!Description
|-
|Senior
|Contested by the top adult teams
|-
|Junior
|Contested by the weak adult teams, often from smaller communities
|-
|Intermediate
|Contested by the remainder of the teams as a link between Senior and Junior
|-
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+Non-adult levels
!Name
!Description
|-
|Under-21
|Contested by players under the age of 21
|-
|Minor
|Contested by players under the age of 18 (Under 17 for inter county)
|-
|Under-age
|Contested by players of all ages between under-17 and under-6
|}

Clubs may come together in districts for the '''County Championship''' or compete on their own.

Though the island of Ireland was [[Partition of Ireland|partitioned]] between two states by the British parliament in 1920, the organisation of Gaelic games (like that of most cultural organisations and religions) continues on an All-Ireland basis. At the national level, Ireland's Gaelic games are organised in 32 [[GAA county|GAA counties]], most of which are identical in name and extent to the 32 [[Counties of Ireland|administrative counties]] on which local government throughout the island was based until the late 20th century.<ref>The administrative counties have been rearranged in the 20th century. [[Northern Ireland]]'s original six counties are now divided into 26 local government districts, while the [[Republic of Ireland]]'s 26 counties have been redrawn, leading to a modern local governmental unit total of 33. The GAA's 32 counties are mainly named for the administrative counties as they existed when the Association was formed, with some exceptions (such as [[Derry GAA|Derry]] and [[Laois GAA|Laois]]). While the former administrative county borders are generally respected, a GAA county may occasionally open its competitions to clubs that are wholly or partly based in neighbouring counties.</ref> The term "county" is also used for some overseas GAA places, such as [[London GAA|London]] and [[New York GAA|New York]]. Clubs are also located throughout the world, in other parts of the [[North American GAA|United States]], in [[British GAA|Great Britain]], in [[Canada GAA|Canada]], in [[Asian GAA|Asia]], in [[Australasia GAA|Australasia]] and continental [[Europe GAA|Europe]].

The level at which county teams compete against each other is referred to as '''inter-county''' (i.e. similar to international). A county panel—a team of 15 players, plus a similar number of substitutes—is formed from the best players playing at the club level in each county. The most prestigious inter-county competition in Gaelic football is the '''All-Ireland Championship'''. The highest-level national championship is called the [[All-Ireland Senior Football Championship]]. Nearly all counties contest this tournament on an annual basis, with crowds of people thronging venues the length and breadth of Ireland—the most famous of these stadiums being [[Croke Park]]—to support their local county team, a team comprising players selected from the clubs in that county. These modified knock-out games start as provincial championships contested by counties against other counties in their respective province, the four Irish provinces of [[Ulster GAA|Ulster]], [[Munster GAA|Munster]], [[Leinster GAA|Leinster]] and [[Connacht GAA|Connacht]]. The four victors in these then progress automatically to the All-Ireland series.

In the past, the team winning each provincial championship would play one of the others, at a stage known as the All-Ireland semi-finals, with the winning team from each game playing each other in the famed All-Ireland Final to determine the outright winner. A recent (the 1990s/2000s) re-organisation created a "back door" method of qualifying, with teams knocked out during the provincial rounds of the All-Ireland Championship now acquiring a second chance at glory. Now the four victorious teams at the provincial level enter the recently created All-Ireland quarter-finals instead, where they compete against the four remaining teams from the All-Ireland Qualifiers to progress to the All-Ireland semi-finals and then the All-Ireland Final. This re-organisation means that one team may defeat another team in an early stage of the championship, yet be defeated and knocked out of the tournament by the same team at a later stage. It also means a team may be defeated in an early stage of the championship, yet be crowned All-Ireland champions—as [[Tyrone GAA|Tyrone]] was in 2005 and 2008.

The secondary competition at the inter-county level is the '''National League'''. The [[National Football League (Ireland)|National Football League]] is held every spring and groups counties into four divisions according to their relative strength. As at local (county) levels of Gaelic football, the League at a national level is less prestigious than the Championship—however, in recent years attendances have grown, as has interest from the public and players. This is due in part to the 2002 adoption of a February–April timetable, in place of the former November start, as well as the provision of Division 2 final stages. Live matches are aired on the international channel [[Setanta Sports]] and the Irish language channel [[TG4]], with highlights shown on [[RTÉ Two]].

There are also All-Ireland championships for county teams at [[All-Ireland Junior Football Championship|Junior]], [[All-Ireland Under 21 Football Championship|Under-21]] and [[All-Ireland Minor Football Championship|Minor]] levels, and provincial and national club championships, contested by the teams that win their respective county championships.