Everything you need to know about the senior football championship draw, including why Ulster is a beacon of hope

The draws for the 2025 provincial senior football championships will take place in just under a fortnight. Here’s all you need to know.
Saturday, October 12th. They will take place live on RTÉ Radio 1’s Saturday Sport programme. They are provisionally scheduled to begin shortly after 4pm.
No, the four provincial football championships will largely follow a similar format to recent years. With four very different provinces in terms of numbers, each provincial council runs their competition slightly different from the others.
Ulster is still the brightest beacon of hope for those wanting the provincial championships to remain an integral part of the GAA summer. There have been four different winners over the last five years – Cavan, Tyrone, Donegal, and Derry twice. The landscape in Connacht has also been competitive, with three different winners over the last six years – Roscommon, Mayo twice, and Galway three times.
However, Leinster and Munster have been dominated by Dublin and Kerry respectively to the extent that it has damaged the appeal of those competitions. Still, in the current championship format there is an incentive for teams to progress to a provincial final as the reward is a place in the All-Ireland series, irrespective of league placing.
The teams drawn out to play in the preliminary round of the 2023 (Armagh v Antrim) and 2024 (Monaghan v Cavan) Ulster championships are exempt from that stage of the competition in 2025.
So, first a draw will take place involving the other five counties – Derry, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone – to produce one preliminary round fixture.
Armagh, Antrim, Cavan and Monaghan will then be added to the bowl alongside the remaining three teams from the preliminary pot. Subsequently, the first team picked out will be placed in a quarter-final against the preliminary round winners.
The rest of the teams will be drawn to produce three further quarter-final pairings.
Donegal won the Ulster title last year, beating Armagh after a penalty shoot-out in the final. Donegal exited the All-Ireland race at the semi-final stage, while Kieran McGeeney’s Armagh advanced to lift the Sam Maguire.
There will be 11 teams in the Leinster draw, with the four semi-finalists from the 2024 championship (Dublin, Louth, Kildare, Offaly) given a bye to the quarter-final stages.
Carlow, Laois, Longford, Meath, Wexford, Westmeath and Wicklow will all be placed in bowl one to form three round-one pairings – the first team drawn out will play the second team, third will play the fourth side drawn, fifth will play sixth. The last remaining team from bowl one gets a bye to the quarter-finals.
The quarter-final draw will see the three round-one winners, plus the team that received a bye, drawn against the four 2024 semi-finalists.
Dublin have completely dominated the Leinster senior football championship now for well over a decade. The Dubs won a 14th consecutive Delaney Cup by beating Louth in this summer’s final.
They were also five-in-a-row winners between 2005-09. So, Dublin have won 19 of the last 20 Leinster titles – you don’t need to know anything about sport to realise those figures aren’t good for any competition.
No. The 2024 Munster finalists, Kerry and Clare, have a bye to the semi-final stages in 2025. The two quarter-final pairings will be drawn from pot one – Cork, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford. The first team will be picked out to meet the second team in quarter-final A, the third team out will play the fourth side in quarter-final B.
Four balls [Kerry, Clare, quarter-final A winners and quarter-final B winners] will then be placed in the bowl where an open draw will produce two semi-finals.
Pádraic Joyce’s Galway will face New York in a predetermined Connacht quarter-final next year. The rotational system used will also see Roscommon travel to London for the second of the three Connacht quarter-finals in 2025. The third quarter-final will be determined during the draw in two weeks when two teams are pulled out from a pot of three – Mayo, Leitrim, Sligo.
The remaining team not selected will be placed in bowl two alongside quarter-final A (New York v Galway), quarter-final B (London v Roscommon) and quarter-final C (the fixture involving two of Mayo, Leitrim, Sligo). A semi-final draw will then be made.
The provincial championships in hurling don’t require a draw because of the current round-robin system. The provisional fixtures for next year’s Munster SHC are already known while a Leinster Council spokesperson has said their draft schedule is with counties and will be confirmed in advance of October 12th.
Munster provisional fixtures
April 19th/20th: Clare v Cork, Cusack Park; Tipperary v Limerick, Semple Stadium.
April 26th/27th: Cork v Tipperary, Páirc Uí Chaoimh; Waterford v Clare, Walsh Park.
May 3rd/4th: Waterford v Limerick, Walsh Park.
May 10th/11th: Clare v Tipperary, Cusack Park.
May 17th/18th: Limerick v Cork, Gaelic Grounds; Tipperary v Waterford, Semple Stadium.
May 24th/25th: Limerick v Clare, Gaelic Grounds; Cork v Waterford, Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
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