The 1996–97 National Football League, known for sponsorship reasons as the Church & General National Football League, was the 66th staging of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

(NFL), an annual

Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

tournament for the

Gaelic Athletic Association county A county is a geographic region within Gaelic games, controlled by a county board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and originally based on the 32 counties of Ireland as they were in 1884. While the administrative geography of Ireland has ...

teams of

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Format

The teams are in four divisions, three of 8 teams and one of 9. Each team plays all the other teams in its division once: either home or away. Teams earn 2 points for a winn and 1 for a draw. The top two teams in Divisions 2, 3 and 4 are promoted, while the bottom two teams in Divisions 1, 2 and 3 are relegated. Eight teams contest the NFL quarter-finals: *The top 4 teams in Division 1 *The top 2 teams in Division 2 *The first-placed teams in Divisions 3 and 4

Promotion and relegation

At the point at which the league was played, promotion and relegation was to be as follows: * Division One: bottom 2 teams demoted to Division Two * Division Two: top 2 teams promoted to Division One. Bottom 2 teams demoted to Division Three. * Division Three: top 2 teams promoted to Division Two. Bottom 2 teams demoted to Division Four. * Division Four: top 2 teams promoted to Division Three. After the season had finished, it was decided to move to a 'mixed-ability' league for a one-season experiment in the 1997–98 NFL season, which meant that there was no relegation or promotion in 1996–97.O'Riordan, Tom, "New format turns league on its head", Irish Independent, 27 August 1997, p. 21

Results and tables

Division 1

Division 2

Play-Off

Division 2

Division 3

Division 4

won, with finishing second.

Knockout stage

Quarter-finals

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Semi-finals

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Final

References

External links

* *

National Football League (Ireland) seasons Long stubs with short prose {{Gaelic-football-competition-stub