Rule 42 History of the debate: The short and troubled history of the Rule 42 debate helps suspend any guarantee of formality going into this year's Congress.

When it came to the floor of the 2001 Congress the general perception was that any motion to open Croke Park was ahead of its time, but instead it ended with the narrowest of defeats for the reformers.

Requiring a two-thirds majority, the 176-89 vote was stunningly close, and one switched vote would have swung the two-thirds majority. There were some heated exchanges in the immediate aftermath when then GAA president Seán McCague refused to authorise a recount, but the result stood.

Those looking to modify Rule 42 could hardly believe how close they came, while the more conservative types were clearly shaken by how close the result was.

It is now accepted that central to the outcome of that debate was the previous night's announcement of £60 million in Government assistance to the Croke Park redevelopment. It was later revealed that certain county delegates voted against the motion after being influenced by that disclosure.

The other significant element to that debate was that both Laois and Longford withdrew their motions to open all GAA grounds, and swung in behind the Roscommon motion which referred only to Croke Park. A similar trend is expected to develop over the coming weeks.

A year later the financial argument for opening Croke Park was weakened, and yet once again the 2002 result of the Rule 42 debate was a little surprising. This time a Clare motion was heavily defeated on a vote of 197 to 106, and that marked an unexpected drop of over 30 per cent in the numbers supporting the change.

The other talking point about that year's debate was how McCague could in fact have ruled the Clare motion out of order, but felt it preferable to allow the discussion go ahead. It also differed from 2001 in that most counties arrived with a clearer mandate on how they were to vote.

Such a sudden shift in mood had caught a lot of people off guard, yet it proved how complex the issue was, and how even the media backlash over the GAA's decision not to open Croke Park had suddenly framed decisions.

But that year's Congress was also rocked from a long ways out when certain GAA officials agreed to let Croke Park be put forward as a potential venue for the European soccer championships in 2008 as part of the then joint Ireland-Scotland bid. That automatically re-formed many of the reformers.

And that is more or less where the debate ended. The 2003 Congress in Belfast saw another Clare motion being announced as out of order, while this time last year the GAA Motions Committee provoked even greater outrage by rejecting all eight motions on Rule 42, which apparently had been carefully drafted by the counties.

So what for 2005? The first odds announced by Boylesports last night confirm the close nature of the debate.

On the issue of Croke Park opening up to soccer and rugby while Lansdowne Road is being redeveloped, they are offering odds of 5 to 6.

The possibility of Croke Park being opened up to rugby only is 2 to 1 with 5 to 6 on the doors remaining firmly shut to both codes. They are also offering 5 to 1 on a Champions League final being played at GAA headquarters at Croke Park by 2020.