KEVIN O’Donovan understands why there are annual calls to extend the inter-county season. That doesn’t mean he agrees with them.

‘I think it’s championship-itis,’ he quipped on his appearance on the Star Sport Podcast.

The Cork GAA CEO compared it to the back-to-back Zach Bryan concerts at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh. After the second show, people were asking why the American singer couldn't play again the following night.

It’s similar to the inter-county championships. With the thrills and entertainment, some people want more, asking for the inter-county season to be extended into August.

Clonakilty and Newcestown will both compete in the county premier senior football championship that throws in later this month.

‘I think it’s an annual thing and I do think it’s partly media,’ the Kilmeen-Kilbree clubman said.

‘There is a genuine argument. Of course the profile is good. We see the benefit of the Cork teams at the moment – why wouldn't you want another month of it? The reason we wouldn’t like another month of it is we want to inspire kids to go out and play. How can they play if the county game runs forever?

‘Participation comes from seeing your heroes and then wanting to emulate them. If your heroes take up the whole summer, there won’t be much left for you.’

He added: ‘When we’ll be back and you have Castlehaven, O’Donovan Rossa, the Dohenys and Bantry going at it in a month’s time, that debate won’t be live then.’

O’Donovan was involved in a working group that put forward a motion to this year’s GAA Congress in February that would have extended the inter-county season into August.

The proposal was withdrawn before it reached the floor, amid expectations it would suffer a heavy defeat.

The main concern is the impact any inter-county extension would have on the club scene that has blossomed since the introduction of the split-season.

‘I found myself on a committee, appointed by Jarlath Burns, to review the calendar. I was outvoted on the committee, and the committee – and I as part of it – proposed a two-week extension,’ O’Donovan said.

‘Two weeks doesn’t mean that the Walls of Jericho cave in on the clubs here in Cork. Let’s say there might be a week there, or maybe two there.

‘But that proposal went to Congress and had to be withdrawn from the floor, it got such a hammering.

‘You can assume that if it was withdrawn by Jarlath, because he didn’t want to embarrass the committee who brought the proposal, you can assume maybe 20 percent support for it.

‘If a motion has 40 or 50 percent, it’s going to get heard, there will be a vote.

‘So, if you are being generous there was 25 percent support for that proposal. That’s what the counties and the clubs had voted on three months ago, and yet I’m hearing it on every podcast in the last week.’

He added: ‘I really think it is a media discussion at the moment.’