The 2015 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship was the 128th edition of the GAA's premier inter-county Gaelic football since its establishment in 1887. 33 teams took part − 31 counties of Ireland (excluding Kilkenny), London and New York.
Dublin dethroned defending champions Kerry in the final, winning by 0–12 to 0–9.
Teams
A total of 33 teams contested the championship – 31 teams from Ireland plus London and New York. As in previous years, Kilkenny footballers did not field a team. New York does not participate in the qualifiers.
Format
Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster organise four provincial championships on a knock-out basis. All the teams beaten in the provincial matches (except New York) enter the All-Ireland Qualifiers in rounds 1, 2 and 4. The qualifier matches are knock-out and eventually result in four teams who play in the All-Ireland Quarter-Finals against the four provincial winners. From the quarter-finals onwards the competition is entirely knock-out.
Broadcasting
RTÉ, the national broadcaster in Ireland provided live television coverage of the championship. In the second year of a deal running from 2014 until 2016, a number of matches were also broadcast by Sky Sports, with Sky having exclusive rights to some games.
Australia's terrestrial Seven Network announced it would not broadcast Gaelic games following its coverage of the 2014 Championship.
As in the 2014 season, the GAA and RTÉ provided a streaming service called GAAGO intended to stream championship games worldwide. The subscription-based service was available to fans everywhere in the world outside of the island of Ireland, including all the games broadcast in Ireland exclusively by Sky Sports. All televised games from the football and hurling championships, as broadcast by both RTÉ and Sky were available to watch on GAAGO.
Stadia and locations
Fixtures and results
Connacht Senior Football Championship
Leinster Senior Football Championship
Munster Senior Football Championship
Ulster Senior Football Championship
All-Ireland Series
Qualifiers
A and B teams
An A and B system for the qualifying draws was introduced in 2014 and continued in 2015. The teams were designated as A or B depending on which half of their provincial championships they were initially drawn to play in. Typically the provincial draws were not seeded, resulting in random A and B team designations.
In all qualifier rounds A teams played A teams and B teams played B teams. Usually the A teams completed their provincial games before the B teams, which allowed the A qualifier games to be scheduled a week before the B qualifier games.
Round 1
The first round consisted of all teams that failed to reach their provincial semi-finals, with the exception of New York. 16 teams in total took part.
In round 1 four A teams played four A teams and four B teams played four B teams. The eight round 1 winners played the eight beaten provincial semi-finalists in round 2 of the qualifiers.
The following teams took part in this round:
London
Leitrim
Carlow
Offaly
Laois
Longford
Louth
Wexford
Wicklow
Waterford
Limerick
Antrim
Cavan
Armagh
Down
Tyrone
Round 2
In the second round of the qualifiers the eight winning teams from Round 1A and Round 1B played the eight beaten provincial semi-finalists. The round 2 draw was unrestricted − if two teams had played each other in a provincial match they could be drawn to meet again. The eight winners of these matches played each other in Round 3.
Antrim
Cavan
Longford
Offaly
Clare
Kildare
Fermanagh
Roscommon
Armagh
Louth
Wexford
Tyrone
Derry
Galway
Tipperary
Meath
Round 3
In the third round of the qualifiers winning teams from round 2A played against winning teams from round 2A and winning teams from round 2B played against winning teams from round 2B. Round 3 rules did not allow two teams that had played each other in a provincial match to meet again. The four winners of these matches played the four beaten provincial finalists in Round 4.