RTÉ soccer anchor O’Herlihy had chance to play the presidential game

History could have been so different. Rather than anchoring RTÉ’s soccer coverage during the glory days of Italia ’90, Bill O’Herlihy could have been preparing for a run at the presidency.

The popular broadcaster has revealed he was asked by Joan FitzGerald — the wife of former taoiseach Garret — to be Fine Gael’s candidate in that year’s Áras race, but didn’t take the request seriously.

“She said I was the only person in Fine Gael who could beat Brian Lenihan,” he tells the Irish Examiner today in an interview on politics.