The 2014 Donegal Senior Football Championship was the 92nd official edition of the Donegal GAA's premier club Gaelic football tournament for senior graded teams in County Donegal.
Glenswilly was defending champion. The club was dethroned in the 2014 final.
Format
It was announced in 2013 that the 2014 championship would begin as soon as the senior Donegal county team was eliminated from the Sam Maguire Cup, which, as it transpired, was in September after the 2014 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final.[1][2] The deferral was decided upon in September 2013 when twenty clubs voted in favour, while six did not (one club was not in attendance).[3][4] The controversy over this decision became a "national media story" and irked inter-county manager Jim McGuinness.[5]
The format remained the same as the previous year, when a group stage was introduced. 28 September Round 1 SFC; 5 October Round 2 SFC; 12 October Round 3 SFC; 19 October SFC quarter-final; 26 October SFC semi-final; 2 November SFC final.[6]
Naomh Conaill lost a last ditch appeal to contest the final.[26] Their grievance came from a black-card incident in their semi-final, involving Glenswilly's Ciaran Bonner. Glenswilly led the Glenties-based team by one point with two minutes of normal time remaining, when Bonner got the black card and was replaced by substitute Oisín Crawford. Bonner, Naomh Conaill maintained, was not eligible to be replaced as he had already picked up a yellow card.[27]