New Year, New Rules

Every Year the GAA tries to make the game more exciting, flow better and keep players safe from avoidable injuries. For those of you who don’t know how this process happens continue to read. If you just want to see the new rules, skip to the bottom. And if you are interested in learning more about the rules keep an eye out for our upcoming referee training event sometime in April (you don’t need to become a registered referee to attend).

So we have three 4 layers of the GAA. GAA in Ireland is the governing body of the game. The USGAA governs the game in the whole United States, while the Southeast division (which Charlotte is a part of) takes care of the games in the southeastern part of the United states. Finally we have our own club, Charlotte James Connolly Gaelic Football Club. Annually there is a congress held in Ireland where new rules are proposed and discussed. They are then trialed in the first part of the season back in Ireland over a 3 month period. Rules that were successful will be approved and implemented throughout the entire season the following year. While unsuccessful rules are discarded. This ensures that as the game evolves, the rules do too.