Once upon a time, newspapers and TV channels shut down their GAA wing in October, correspondents were sent to rugby matches or racing, to return again when the hour went forward. Not any more. We have club championships, managerial merry-go-rounds and a number of GAA writers whose job it is to keep the pots boiling.

For some of these, off-season means open season, their guns trained on officialdom usually, the crowd in charge of “structures” (cue the sabre-rattling). I have been that soldier, will be again, but the older we get, the more predictable and ironic the indignation becomes.

The topical target at the moment is the Gaelic Players Association (GPA), which is currently on the lookout for a new chief executive following Dessie Farrell’s decision to step down. It seems the GPA’s main crime is to do too well for itself, having guaranteed its funding and an intrinsic role within the GAA establishment. It doesn’t represent club players, however – only those now commonly referred to as “the elite players”, something the rest of the GAA world only seems to have noticed these last few weeks.

Farrell did his organisation some service and he’ll do well in his next private sector venture with the GPA on his CV. It is not that long ago that the association was considered a pariah by many of the same people who are now decrying it for not solving every age-old problem within the GAA.

Former Monaghan footballer Declan Brennan has been in the news recently as he outlined plans to set up the Club Players Association. His reason for starting such a group is based on the grievances of the club player – those who make up 99% of the playing population yet feel about 5% of the love.

The grievance is well aired at this stage. Club players are spending most of the year training, less of it playing. The fault apparently is the concentration on the county teams, which monopolise the fixture calendar in the summer months.

This issue has not crept up on the GAA hierarchy. Plenty of Congresses have heard impassioned pleas from the floor about the plight of the club player, airwaves and newsprint have featured this dilemma, yet little has happened to improve their lot.

The GAA has moved with glacier-like speed to see off the potential rumblings, with various committees formed and one or two radical kites flown. Bringing the All-Ireland finals forward a week or two was one such kite. Actually increasing the number of football county championship games being played is another, that from current GAA director general Paraic Duffy. I like that one but it hardly addresses the fixture conundrum.

Like all GAA changes, this will be talked to death before something is actually done. Like all GAA problems, the obvious solution will be the last one implemented. And only then after much hand-wringing. In this instance, the answer lies with provincial councils and the culling of their power to make fixtures.

Only a power answerable to no one could run a knockout competition between seven teams over 13 summer weeks: step up the 2016 Connacht football championship – it had seven games in total, yet it ran from 1 May to 17 July.

We’re not just picking on Connacht. There were three weeks between provincial football semi-finals and finals in Leinster and Munster. In Ulster, had Tyrone beaten Cavan first time out in their Ulster semi-final back on 19 June (the match finished in a draw), Tyrone would have to wait a full month for the scheduled Ulster final on 19 July.

Do we need to say more?

Well, we could mention the hurling. Good luck to Tipperary, 2016 All-Ireland hurling champions who had three weeks off after their Munster quarter-final win, three more after the Munster semi-final, a month after the Munster final victory, and three weeks rest for the All-Ireland final.

In winning this memorable All-Ireland, much was spoken about the disadvantage of the Munster champions waiting a month to play Galway in their All-Ireland semi-final and showing the signs on that day in Croke Park, as they were nearly caught cold.

They played five championship matches, started their campaign on 22 May and finished on 4 September: a total of 15 weeks.

The fix is easy. Start one of the championships much earlier (football, mid-April), play every second week and wrap up in July. Start the other a month or two later (hurling, mid-June) and wrap it up later. With the time saved, write it in stone: this is club championship time.

There you go. Problem solved. What’s next?

If only it was that simple.

That’s not the real problem, however, for there is still another glaring issue that needs to be addressed, namely the importance now being attached to winning provincial and All-Ireland championships, along with the money being invested in squads and back-room armies to achieve this. This is the bigger picture problem for the new GPA boss because it’s getting out of hand.

Within weeks, every single county squad that is serious about doing something next year, and that means nearly all of them, will be back in a form of training. Diets, gym sessions and planning meetings will happen. At least half of them are at it already with college panels, not to mention tidying up club commitments on winter fields.

They will feel they have to up the ante from last year. They will look at Tipp and Dublin and think they have to match them. They must be bigger, stronger, faster, smarter. They will set themselves those tasks, helped by a willing group that will manage that process minutely, while more will fund it. For some, it will bring success; for others, unrealistic expectations followed by crushing disappointment.

For almost all, it will bring huge pressures generated by a potent combination of themselves, the media, supporters (some true fans but mostly fair-weather merchants) and the worst addition to our GAA landscape in recent years: the keyboard warriors.

That’s a lot for a 20-year-old who started out just wanting to play hurling or football to deal with. And that’s just the off-season. Find the enjoyment in that.

Maybe the plight of the club player isn’t that bad after all.