“Carlow voted against it at Special Congress, but it wasn’t enough and my fear is that we’re going to be forgotten about,” said Foley. “They say it’s going to get plenty of coverage and media exposure, but it’ll be interesting to see if that happens.

“With a lot of things in the GAA, once you’re out of sight you’re out of mind. Are we getting to the stage where it’s just promoting the elite? Are the top counties going to get all the attention?

I’m not saying Carlow are in it for media attention, we’re trying to improve the standard of football we’ve been playing, and playing teams like Dublin, Monaghan, Tyrone and Kildare in the last few years has been huge for us.

“We’ll still be part of Leinster, but those games against Monaghan and Tyrone will be gone from us. We’ll be replacing that with playing against Division 3 and 4 teams which will effectively be like playing the league all over again.”

The concern in counties like Carlow is players could opt out instead of hanging around for a Tier 2 competition.

“That’s a huge possibility,” said Foley. “In Carlow at the minute, our age profile is high enough — there’s a good few lads around the 27, 28 mark.

“I’d know myself lads are kind of saying to themselves, ‘Sure what’s the point? Are we going to go in and burst ourselves in training to be just disregarded in the summer?’ For the younger lads, they might say to themselves, ‘Sure why not go to America? We can still play in the league and then go off travelling for the summer’.”

Foley said it felt like the new structure was rushed through and he couldn’t fathom why it happened before the findings of Fixtures Calendar Review task force, due in a matter of weeks, have been published.

The other worrying thing for a county like Carlow is sponsorship, it’s hard enough to get businesses involved at the moment let alone trying to generate income from a Tier 2 competition

Like Carlow, Tipperary were also against the proposal though found themselves in a minority of less than 25% when it came to Saturday’s Special Congress vote.

“We were against it as a county but even from my point of view I’d be against it,” said new Tipperary manager David Power. “I think the weak are ultimately just going to get weaker and the stronger will get stronger. I could even see it ending up with more tiers coming in, like hurling.

“From talking to different people, I think a Tier 2 competition is wanted but it’s the general format that’s at issue. I don’t know if what we’ve got now is going to excite players. I think players going off to America instead of playing in the Championship could become a big issue with these counties going forward.”

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Former Wexford boss Power, who guided his native Tipp to All-Ireland minor glory in 2011, reckons a wider structural overhaul is required. That could still occur depending on what proposals the Fixtures Calendar Review group.

“I feel the elephant in the room is the provincial system,” said Power. “That should go, right across the board. Turn it into a Champions League situation where you have eight groups of four starting off in the Sam Maguire competition. The bottom 16, two from each group, then go into a Tier 2 and you play it out from there. It’s standing out a mile that we should be moving in that direction.

“The provincial system that is there now is not working. Hurling, in fairness, seems to have the right system, and football needs to follow suit.”