Newstalk’s ‘Off the Ball’ team off the air

Newstalk has been rocked by the departure of the award-winning team behind the acclaimed Off the Ball sports show in a row over the programme’s start time.

Presenters Eoin McDevitt, Ken Early, Ciarán Murphy, Simon Hick, and Mark Horgan resigned after a request to go to air an hour earlier, at 6pm, was rejected by management who felt it would not make commercial sense to cut into George Hook’s Drivetime show.

Newstalk sports editor Ger Gilroy, who created Off the Ball in 2002, returned to the helm last night along with Cian Murtagh, David McIntyre, and Joe Molloy, all of whom predominantly feature on the station’s weekend sports broadcasts.