Former All-Star Danny Hughes says the county board's 'dark ages' mentality will be to blame if Down fall through the Tailteann Cup trapdoor.
The 2010 All-Ireland finalist pulled no punches with a hard-hitting critique of officials ahead of Sunday's Division 2 relegation clash with Cork.
It's a repeat of the 2010 All-Ireland final though both counties have slipped back considerably since then and the losers will almost certainly be relegated to Division 3.
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That will probably mean Tailteann Cup football too though Hughes acknowledged that in Down's case, Division 3 is about the appropriate level after years of county board bungling.
Hughes said: "When you look at the best out there, when you look at Dublin's structures and how they develop a player pathway, when you look at Donegal and their head of athletic development, when you look at what counties like Cavan are doing, we're living in the dark ages in Down when it comes to that type of stuff.
"Unfortunately, too much power is wielded by too few people in Down and it's making us second class citizens as regards preparation for any sort of meaningful assault on the league or Ulster or, dare I say it, the All-Ireland.
"What they're doing hasn't worked and doesn't work. They keep going back to the same model, they keep talking about the 'Down way' and all this other drivel that comes out and it's just nonsense.
"We're in a totally different era, a totally different way of playing. Off the cuff stuff just doesn't carry any weight any more.
"Our whole county seems to be very fractured in terms of hope, in terms of attitude. There's a general apathy towards the county because structurally things are just very, very poor."
Ex-attacker Hughes said Down's difficulties aren't down to the present players who are 'good committed lads'.
He said the real problem is the lack of quality coming through from underage teams to back them up 'because the structures are so poor'.
And he hit out at a lack of loyalty towards previous managers, particularly Paddy Tally who stepped down after last year's Championship.
Hughes was on the sub-committee that sourced Tally for the job and felt the current Kerry coach could have overseen long-term change, like Kieran McGeeney has done in Armagh.
But Tally stepped down because he felt the clubs weren't fully behind him. It wasn't until November that they finally found a replacement when James McCartan stepped up to bail the county out.
Hughes said: "James said himself he didn't go for the job, he didn't want the job. And as only Down can do, they ended up giving the job to someone who didn't particularly want it.
"If Paddy Tally had been allowed to put structures in place, he was well capable of implementing them and overseeing them. He could have worked for four, five, six years on that but he had no control or say in any of that. It was 'just go and manage the team - anything else is outside your remit'.
"Then there was a fair bit of dissent about reappointing him. The clubs didn't have confidence in him despite two of his years being Covid years. Without any Plan B, the clubs went against him and I suppose Paddy looked at it and said, 'If there's no appetite, why would I stay?'
"Unfortunately there's no loyalty to management in Down and it's plain to see why we are where we are. Look at how things ended for Jim McCorry too, farcical stuff. So now it looks like we're going to be in Division 3 and it's about where we deserve to be.
"Ending up in the Tailteann Cup is kind of symbolic of Down at the minute. Should that come to pass, Down needn't go blaming Championship structures or unfairness or anything. They only have themselves to blame."
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