On the airwaves: Mary Hannigan on the reaction to the new TV deal that seems to have vexed the public even more than the Ansbacher report

"The country's going mad with all this anti-FAI stuff," complained Lesley, an early caller to RTÉ radio's Liveline show yesterday, pointing out, much to his bemusement, that the issue was getting more coverage than the Ansbacher affair. Soon after: "Ansbacher is a small group of greedy, insensitive people with little or no concern for ordinary, grass-roots citizens," Alan Hunter of the Irish Football Supporters Association rang in to remind Lesley. "Does that ring any bells," he asked.

Brendan Menton, general secretary of the Football Association of Ireland, who fielded questions for the duration of the show, but was only sporadically allowed to complete his answers, didn't just have Lesley on his side - earlier Frank, a Shamrock Rovers supporter, put up an impassioned defence of the FAI's decision to sell the rights to the Republic of Ireland's home internationals to Sky Sports.

"It's probably the first time I have ever supported the FAI on a big issue," he said, before slating the majority of those who "supported" the national team during the World Cup, either at home or in Japan and South Korea. "They're festival supporters, that's all they are," he insisted, claiming that very few of them had any interest in local football and were probably all Sky Sports subscribers anyway, where they keep an eye on their "local" teams, Manchester United, Liverpool and Leeds. "This money will help further the game in this country," he said.

Pat Dolan, manager of St Patrick's Athletic, was next on the phone, revealing that, despite being a member of the television committee of the FAI, he had never been consulted on the issue.

"Whaaaat?" asked an incredulous Derek Davies, before Menton took some of the wind out of his sails by explaining that Dolan had been in Belgium with St Patrick's, for their European tie, when the committee had met on Friday morning.

Dolan admitted that the FAI was "in a no-win situation" but said that had he been at the television committee meeting he "would have tried to persuade everybody involved that terrestrial television was the way forward for the Irish international team".

Tom McGurk then extracted an unqualified promise from Menton that the Republic's games would not appear on Sky Sports' pay-per-view service, although there was no guarantee that the channel would not bump up its subscription price before it aired the first of those home games.

"Is it specific to your contract that the current cost of Sky Sports per month will not rise?" asked McGurk. "No, it is not - it would be unreasonable to expect that," said Menton.

Mark was next on the phone, a Sky Sports subscriber who vowed to unsubscribe if the FAI/Sky deal went through. As a former publican he called on the Vintners' Association to boycott Sky and refuse to show Irish games in their pubs. And with that, a pig flew past Montrose and crash-landed on the FAI's offices in Merrion Square.