RTÉ’S sports department has been blindsided by a decision not to broadcast any of Ireland’s Nations League games on radio, with sources saying it sets a ‘dangerous precedent’.
Extra.ie has established that none of the upcoming soccer fixtures against Kosovo, Israel or Austria will be broadcast, as normal, on RTÉ Radio, with the station insisting it is in ‘no way to do’ with the situation in Gaza.
Ireland are due to play Kosovo away in Pristina on Thursday before the controversial tie with Israel is played at a neutral venue in Hungary on Sunday.
Austria are then set to visit the Aviva Stadium in Dublin the following Thursday, with another match against Israel taking place the Sunday after that, in Serbia.
Pic: INPHO/Laszlo Geczo
In an unprecedented move, RTÉ Radio will not host any coverage of the games, which a spokeswoman insisted was for ‘scheduling’ reasons.
However, sources within RTÉ told Extra.ie they were not given any explanation for the decision. They have suggested it was a ‘cost-cutting exercise’ and that the department had already been stripped back to its bare bones, a hypothesis RTÉ rejected.
One source explained: ‘The Sports team got the news last week they wouldn’t be going live with the Ireland games.
‘I can’t remember the last time a competitive game wasn’t broadcast on radio. It sets a dangerous and worrying precedent for Irish sport. If you look at the number of sports bulletins on Radio 1, they’ve all been cut. You only have four a day. There was nearly double that a few years ago.
‘It’s cuts and cuts and more cuts in radio, and now you’re going to have people who want to listen to the match and they won’t be able to, not on RTÉ anyway.
‘Newstalk will have it live, so it’s playing into our competitors’ hands and it doesn’t make any sense. The team weren’t given a proper excuse as to why they weren’t going on Radio 1. I know it’s a pain for other shows to have to miss their slots for sports, but it’s always been the case that games were broadcast live.’
Discussions were held in RTÉ about the games being broadcast on alternative stations. However, the decision was made by senior management that the games would not be transmitted.
Pic: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin
The John Creedon Show will feature on Thursday evening instead of the match, according to the schedule on RTÉ’s website.
But sources said such programmes have always been moved when games were taking place, commenting: ‘Just put it on somewhere. There’s 2FM there as well as other stations. Just give it some sort of show somewhere.
‘There are a lot of angry people in [RTÉ] Sports at the moment. And it’s a bit strange they’re celebrating 100 years of RTÉ Radio, and at the same time they’re not putting out three competitive Ireland games on the radio.’
A spokeswoman for RTÉ defended its sports output and said the failure to broadcast the games was due to a scheduling issue.
She said: ‘We have had a fantastic year with sports. We have delivered above and beyond… what that team has done is amazing. From the [GAA] Championship, the Katie Taylor fight, the athletics, the camogie, Shane Lowry at the Irish Open and the Horse Show at the RDS. Look at the World Cup: we delivered 104 games live… The BBC and ITV split theirs.’
She said the games not being aired on radio was in ‘no way’ to do with the decision surrounding the broadcast of the Israel games, and is ‘not part of any boycott or anything like that’.
The fixtures will go ahead on TV as normal, but the coverage of the Israel fixtures are to be stripped back amid a campaign for the Irish team to boycott the game.
Micheál Carrigy, Fine Gael TD and member of the Oireachtas Media and Sport Committee, last night called on RTÉ to explain the latest decision to the public, given that it is ‘an organisation funded by the taxpayer’.
Pic: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin
He told Extra.ie he doesn’t see how the matter is a ‘scheduling issue, as schedules have been moved around before for games’.
He said the public could choose not to watch or listen to the coverage, if it is a case that choosing not to broadcast one fixture would impact others. He said he would not watch or listen to the fixture against Israel on Sunday.
Mr Carrigy added: ‘I can understand the reluctance to [broadcast the Israel fixture]. I think the vast majority of people in the country aren’t in favour of the game going ahead. ‘This is a UEFA decision, not an FAI decision… My opinion is UEFA should ban [Israel] from the competition. It happened with Russia, and I think the same should happen with Israel.’
Mr Carrigy said the station ‘may be trying to appease the mood swing’ of the public, but added that he was not aware of any contractual obligations or the ‘knock-on effect’ that not broadcasting one fixture may have.
RTÉ last week issued a statement about the set-up for the Israel games.
It read: ‘RTÉ will meet its contractual obligations to broadcast the two UEFA Nations League fixtures between Ireland and Israel. The broadcast arrangements for the two games will be as follows: there will be no studio presentation; commentary will be taken from the international feed and will not be provided by an RTÉ commentator; there will be no studio punditry; RTÉ has not taken advertising or sponsorship around either game, and there will be news coverage of the games and the wider events surrounding them.
‘These arrangements reflect RTÉ’s decision to fulfil its contractual broadcasting obligations while limiting the additional production and commercial activity associated with the fixtures.’
Additional reporting by Muiris Ó Cearbhaill