World Cup time comes but once every four years, and every time it arrives on our consciousness we hear all about the ‘rights war’. The last World Cup took place when I was sitting my Leaving Certificate, and I along with my classmates watched the drama of the Saipan affair unfold, Roy Keane’s exclusive interview about it and losing to Spain before reaching the Semis. We crashed and burned then, and vowed to do better next time.
Unfortunately, soccer (or football, as they call it in some places - not to detract from that abomination that is the GAA) in Ireland is largely run by Dublin people, the FAI. Their complete lack of organisational skills and poor choice of manager for the country’s team led to us not even qualifying for the World Cup 2006. Before all of this happened, RTÉ, the venerable useless organisation that they are, went on the hunt to show the World Cup on the State Broadcaster. RTÉ really don’t want the hassle of going and reporting on the World Cup… it means digging out an array of tacky props, getting cameramen to come into work, maybe even getting a director to show up in the gallery and do something - so in that sense, Ireland’s inability to qualify was music to their ears.
However, the people of Ireland went mad at the thought of not watching the ’spectacle of football’ free of charge on our TVs here and so RTÉ went out and fought for rights to broadcast the World Cup on their antiquated network of masts and stuff. But after spending a large portion of their annual budget on securing the rights to show the games on RTÉ, they bought the graphics and everything else from FIFA, gave Bill O’Herlihy a call and asked him to come in and take the nation through the ad-breaks and chit-chat and the odd clip or two of football.
The usual cast of characters were dug up for the event, including the still-living John Giles and his partner in crime (bad pun) Mr. Eamonn Dunphy (who since joining the RTÉ coverage of the World Cup has gotten fired from his ‘day-job’ on Dublin’s NewsTalk 106 radio station). Graham Souness was drafted in, fresh from his latest sacking, and even the monotonous Peter Collins, a Mayo man typically heard on Formula 1 coverage on RTÉ, stepped in to take Bill’s hotseat when he was at the odd tribunal giving evidence.
RTÉ then splashed out on a fancy website, ladening it with tacky advertisments, brutal graphic design and utilising the same rubbish template the rest of the abominable site uses. Then they went in search of their favourite stuff, advertisments for d’telly! They got all the companies that screw the public night and day to sign up for ads during the 30 or so ‘commercial breaks’ Bill so lovingly cuts to when someone’s talking… everyone was there from the Vodafone Group to the Eircom Group and even the odd beer commercial - which reminds me, RTÉ graciously accepted Budweiser’s offer of doing a sponsorship deal on the coverage programmes. The last act was of course to cover the football - a seemingly irrelevant point in RTÉ’s world where ads and antique-correspondants come first. They sent their favourite man in a beard “out to Germany” to cover the games. And when George Hamilton talks about football, you can’t help but switch over to ITV. Even the hack that is Ray Houghton is in on the deal!
After all this, we’re presented with the same tack and rubbish we’ve come to expect from our TV License revenue. Advertisments to pay for the million or so employees RTÉ have, Bill O’Herlihy and Eamonn Dunphy and of course, Georgie Hamilton. And Ray Houghtan, Graham Souness, John Giles, Peter Collins, Liam Brady and so many more I couldn’t be bothering to remember. The FIFA backdrops were obviously paid for by FIFA (because RTÉ is ‘poor’) and we’re ultimately left with the feeling that we’re not actually there. Unlike pitch-side studio huggers ITV and elegant studio BBC in the centre of Berlin, RTÉ send out their VHS-standard stuff from a room in RTÉ towers in Montrose, switching back to George over a dodgy mobile phone. But here’s the question, is George, Ray and the gang actually there?? We never see them, they sound crap and don’t say much. Is it all a joke?? Are they in the room next to Bill watching it on ITV while on a mobile phone re-routed through Donegal to make it sound crackly?? Is Bill really Bill? Or just a papier maché Bill who says things like “Gentlemen” and “listen, let’s have a quick commercial break” and “Luive”?? Is RTÉ even broadcasting live?? Is it all pre-rehearsed at a time when Dunphy is coherent enough to sit up straight for five minutes?? Are the interviews with pundits in RTÉ-badged shirts done outside Montrose with a green-screen behind them?? Who knows?? We’ll find out, after this short commercial break…..
diarmy
It is with heavy hearts that Ireland greeted the news on Tuesday that the most famous and often times infamous leaders of our country in the 20th century had died. Charles J. Haughey passed away at his home in Kinsealy in the early hours of Tuesday morning, leaving behind a legacy of prosperous economic foundations and plenty of speculation to fill tabloid headers for many years to come. Mr. Haughey to many was an enigma, and that was what perplexed a nation and divided a country.
