GAA respond to Minister's plans

THE GAA has been in contact with Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan to give its opinion on his plans to expand the list of sporting events that are required to be available on terrestrial television.

This initiative has caused a great deal of controversy in relation to rugby, with the IRFU resisting any attempt to constrain their commercial freedom to dispose of rights to European Cup matches, which are currently shown exclusively on Sky.

Feargal McGill, the GAA’s operations manager, said that whereas the association isn’t as affected as other organisations, it still has a view on the subject.

“It’s not as big an issue for us as it is for the IRFU and FAI. That being said, we’d like to maintain control over which of our fixtures are broadcast. There is no big objection to All-Ireland finals and semi-finals being listed, but when it comes to other matches we’d like to retain our options.”

The proposals in relation to Gaelic games would see the scheduled fixtures extended beyond the All-Ireland senior finals to cover semi-finals, quarter-finals and provincial finals.

Whereas the GAA has for the past six years granted broadcast rights to subscription channel Setanta Ireland in respect of Saturday evening league matches, there is no likelihood of the association taking championship fixtures out of the free-to-air sector.

In the most recent round of rights allocations, which are due for renewal next year, the only major departure from the norm was the inclusion of commercial channel TV3 as a broadcaster of live championship matches.

Croke Park could, however, be indirectly affected by any move to require the IRFU to make its rights available to terrestrial television, as the Minister’s plans envisage the free-to-air broadcaster paying market rates for the European Cup, and that could significantly affect the amount of cash terrestrial stations have at their disposal for the acquisition of GAA rights.

Kilkenny defender John Tennyson will miss Sunday’s Leinster hurling semi-final meeting with Dublin at Croke Park. The Carrickshock player has suffered a tear in the quadriceps femoris (quad) and will be out of action for two weeks.

KILKENNY (IHC v Wexford, tomorrow, Wexford Park, 7.30pm): L Tierney; M Phelan, P Murphy, K Mooney; J Cotterell, R Coady, N Doherty; P Hartley, N Walsh; B Beckett, R Dollard, N Cleere; M Grace, P Cleere, E Guinan.