Seán Moran on Gaelic Games:Poor old GAC. The Games Administration Committee has already made a name for itself with some notoriously inept disciplinary decisions and now it's in everyone's crosshairs because of its arrangements for the qualifiers.

The idea that the committee should be split between discipline and fixture-making is fast becoming irrelevant. Whatever the jurisdiction it's getting hit from all sides.

The latest controversy concerns the postponement of the Derry-Dublin All-Ireland qualifier. Whereas it is possible to feel sympathy for the GAC you wouldn't have needed to be a meteorologist to see this storm coming.

Stadium infrastructure within the association is desperately unbalanced. Four counties in Munster have stadiums with a 40,000-plus capacity. The rest of the country has one, Croke Park. Finding a venue for a big match between Dublin and any county north of the Dublin-Galway line was going to be difficult once Clones, the only ground near that sort of capacity, was in such demand.

As soon as a double bill was ruled out - and deeming Monaghan-Meath combined with Down-Fermanagh as too attractive for the Clones capacity of just over 35,000 seems overly cautious - there was a hard call to be made. It was a choice between moving the Monaghan match or the Derry-Dublin game if the matches were to be best accommodated.

Underlying the problem was the fact that the last thing the GAC expected to have to do during the two weeks when the Special Olympics would be occupying Croke Park was to have to find a venue for Dublin in the qualifiers. But that's what happened.

Whereas Clones might best accommodate the Derry-Dublin match, should that have been the absolute priority? The GAC should have realised that granting Dublin an extra seven days in which to try to recover from Sunday's calamity would cause a major fuss. Around this time of the year the air is thick with the laments of counties who have to take the field only six days after debilitating defeats. Appearing to make a special case for Dublin was always going to raise hackles.

Accordingly there should have been a formal briefing on the reasons behind the postponement. This would have at least made the case and met objections head on. GAC chairman Tony O'Keeffe was immediately available on Monday afternoon to take calls but his reasoning appeared unsynchronised with GAC secretary Seán Ó Laoire on RTE's Morning Ireland yesterday.

For instance, the reasonable argument that Dublin GAA members are heavily committed to volunteer work for the weekend's Special Olympics opening ceremony was a consideration emphasised by O'Keeffe but not mentioned by Ó Laoire. O'Keeffe played down the Derry-Kerry hurling match as a factor whereas Ó Laoire mentioned the GAC's inclination to give Derry's hurlers a free run.

Given the priorities of the Derry County Board it was hardly surprising that this argument generated more derision than understanding - and to put the tin hat on, it emerged yesterday that the hurling match was being put back to Sunday anyway, without Derry knowing anything about it as late as yesterday evening.

Now it's no reflection on either O'Keeffe or Ó Laoire that they didn't appear to be singing from precisely the same hymn sheet given that both made themselves available to explain the decision but wouldn't it have been better to anticipate the need for an agreed line on the matter?

The GAA as an organisation has generally been notoriously resistant - at times to the despair of its beleaguered press office - to the view that public relations can be a substantive issue but the last couple of days have been a case in point.

In the absence of any compelling reasons to the contrary Dublin should have been obliged to play. If Monaghan-Meath couldn't be moved from this weekend (and Monaghan would presumably have had the same objections to postponement as Derry), Derry-Dublin could have gone ahead in Breffni Park in Cavan.

If, as was stated, running two big matches in the province on the same afternoon wasn't possible, Páirc Tailteann in Navan - where Derry say they offered to play - would have been an alternative.

If ticket arrangements, which after all have a safety dimension, prohibited the match being played this Saturday - and surely it's not impossible to print 35,000 tickets and send them to the counties involved within three days - this should have been publicised in lights as soon as the decision was made rather than being left for Ó Laoire to pick up the following day.

This imbroglio demonstrates the shortcomings of the qualifier system. Whereas it undoubtedly represents an improvement on the old system its administration is proving very difficult now that counties have taken its benefits for granted.

It was a shame to see Clare exit the championship last weekend after such a stirring display in adverse circumstances. But that was the luck of the draw. Had they drawn Laois or Dublin there would have been few complaints about the six-day gap between Munster semi-final and qualifier.

It's the same situation as Clare benefited from a year ago when playing a Wexford side that had convinced itself they couldn't win within a week of losing the Leinster final.

As for the mutterings around Ennis that they would have been better off losing to Tipp and getting a handy qualifier draw, that wasn't the impression you would have formed around the Clare dressing-room after they had beaten Tipperary in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

Then the talk was all about the inviting prospect of winning a Munster title and how that would be great because even though they had reached the All-Ireland final last year they still hadn't won anything. The mistake wasn't beating Tipperary; it was the defeat by Cork or the loss of discipline that cost Clare two key players.

The solution to Clare's woes and the Derry-Dublin situation would be simply a structured, round-robin championship with planned fixtures at designated venues throughout the summer culminating in play-offs at Croke Park. This sort of schedule would increase the number of atmospheric occasions at smaller venues.

Then there would be a proper outlet for the enthusiasm so evident in Ennis last Saturday and which crazily won't be catered for again this summer. And it would spare the GAC the intense pressure of having to organise fixtures at six days' notice and the consequent prospect of having to cope with the flak that flew this week.