Before I answer your three questions, I would preface my answers by re-stating the following : This must be a formal entity, not a collection of loose alliances. In effect the Divisional team becomes a mini-county team, and a seperate entitiy. Again, an extension of, not a replacement for, the club teams. So, deep breath ....
Overall you'd need to make a lot of things happen before it would work.
I agree that this would have to be the case initially, at least until the the concept bedded down. There are no external coaches in the South Kerry example. They have a manager and 2 selectors who all come from clubs within South Kerry. There is a South Kerry Divisional board, with delegates from the clubs, who appoint these selection teams. Obviously the concept is mature down there, and they still have inter-club squabbles about selection and such, that is human nature, but everyone knows that this is the representative team of the Division. In the exact same manner as the county team, albeit with a smaller pick, there will be disappointments at exclusions etc etc.(1) Outside selectors and managers would have to be appointed. The biggest danger to the system would be clubs pulling out due to petty squabbling over bias, be it perceived or real. Say you pick a West Offaly team, Erin Rovers, Shannonbridge, Doon and Cloghan would all expect 2/3 players each, Ferbane and Ballycumber would expect four or five at least, and that's before Tubber get included as I assume they would and expecting two or three as well. You couldn't take the field with 23 players, but if anyone falls short of that allocation, or God help us one of the entities get no-one, and suddenly we have a huff. There would have to be huge efforts to make sure it would all be above board and be seen to be above board.
I am not sure whether the South Kerry Board gets funding from the Kerry County council, but I would assume so. There are also seperate fundraisers for 'South Kerry' in addition to the normal club lottos and stuff that the individual clubs go through. A key thing to bear in mind is that because South Kerry is a collection of clubs, they do not need a 'ground' or any of the expenses that go with it. The clubs all allow the South Kerry team to train or play challenge matches on their pitches, and in fact it is seen as a perk when it happens. The expenses for upkeep, electricity, maintenance etc are not applicable in this instance, so the expenses are on things like meals, training cones, balls and jerseys etc etc.(2) Just out of curiosity, who would pay for the bread and butter expenses involved in training etc.? Does it get paid for at county board level, do you charge all clubs equally, do you charge based on members.....(I'm not trying to stir here, I'm genuinely curious)
(3) How do you seperate fixtures? Do intermediate/junior fixtures take place on separate weeks? Say for example the players come back off county duty and in seven days you play all the junor intermediate matches, but West Offaly want Jimmy Coughlan, Trevor and whoever else from Doon to train once or twice with them during the week? Squabbling over players could get very messy. You could do this with junior teams and junior amalgamations where to the best of my knowledge there aren't any county players in there to mess things up, but otherwise it gets messy.
Again, this is based on the fact that is an established entity now, with the full support of the clubs, and with reciprocal support to the clubs from the Divisional Board. Essentially, the volume of games is fairly low for the Divisional Side, challenge matches and Championship games. They manage to fit the training around the Club training, and coming up to championship games, the Divisional side gets priority. Nothing really ever grinds to a halt for the Club teams, nor do the players be constantly missing.
