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GAA chiefs claim RTÉ focus on Davy unfair

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

GAA chiefs have described RTÉ’s focus on Davy Fitzgerald’s language on Sunday as “highly unusual” while the Clare county board have asked whether all inter-county managers are being treated in the same manner as the Banner boss.

By Michael Moynihan
The broadcaster highlighted some of Fitzgerald’s controversial utterances, captured on microphone during the Munster SHC clash with Waterford, in their The Sunday Game review programme. A sequence from the afternoon’s game in which the Clare manager used expletives was rerun, albeit with the bad language bleeped out. Yesterday Croke Park sources indicated their unhappiness with the focus on Fitzgerald, asking whether the state broadcaster had adopted a selective approach in its treatment of the Clare hurling manager.

“It’s not RTÉ’s role to investigate such matters,” said a GAA source. “The focus on Davy seemed highly unusual, but investigating such matters is the role of the Central Competitions Control Committee.

“Is that the first time RTÉ have come into possession of material like that, and used in that way? To have that material and to make a grandstand issue of it like that seems highly irregular. The other side of it is whether or not Davy Fitzgerald is deemed to be a fair target because of his profile”

Meanwhile, Clare PRO Syl O’Connor has called for more balanced coverage from RTÉ, pointing to the broadcaster’s role in promoting the games it covers.

“The first question is that there are over 60 other inter-county managers involved in hurling and football,” said O’Connor yesterday.

“Are they all being treated the same?

“Anyone who knows Davy knows he doesn’t have a halo over his head, but he doesn’t pretend that he does, either.

“In the heat of battle in a Munster championship game he had a few words to say on the sideline, but to have it highlighted like that on the national station, which is supposed to give a balanced presentation of a game . . . I never saw something like that before.

“The national broadcaster is also there to play a part in the promotion of games that thousands of people enjoy throughout the country.”

O’Connor stressed that while he wasn’t condoning bad language on the sideline, he said it was a common occurrence at games all over the country.

“The second point is that people might ask if this means we condone what happened, which we don’t. If the same thing happened in Antrim or Galway or Waterford or Dublin, if it happened anywhere we’d be saying the exact same thing. But the issue is bigger than that.

“If you put a microphone on every player and every member of management you’d hear the same.

O’Connor also asked what would happen if the same attention were paid to every manager’s comments over the course of an entire season.

“This kind of focus on a single incident does nothing for the GAA. Highlighting something like this, something which happens in every single game, does nothing to promote the games. Put a microphone on every other manager from the beginning of the championship next year and we’ll see what we come up with then.”

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