‘The only national broadcaster who has not taken a game has been Ireland’ – Shamrock Rovers chief on RTÉ row

With Stephen Bradley’s men preparing for their Europa League play-off first-leg away to Greek champions PAOK on Thursday, Martin also confirmed that a hearing on the club’s FAI Cup appeal is scheduled for next week, after appealing the FAI’s decision last week to reject their protest regarding the eligibility of Bohemians’ Dawson Devoy in their Cup defeat.

The Hoops made headlines across the country yesterday when they hit out at RTÉ for not showing any of their eight European qualifiers this summer, with St Patrick’s Athletic, Shelbourne and Derry’s City’s European ties also put behind a paywall in recent weeks.

In a hard-hitting statement published yesterday, the Tallaght club also said they will now consider whether or not they’ll facilitate any future requests from RTÉ to show any of their remaining home league games this season.

The Irish Independent understands that the club contacted RTÉ, Virgin Media, TG4 and Premier Sports on a number of occasions from the beginning of their European games with a view to broadcasting them on television, but to no avail.

Sources told this publication that RTÉ spoke to the FAI last November to inform the association that due to financial, scheduling and editorial reasons, the state broadcaster were not in a position to broadcast any club’s European qualifiers this summer.

“If there is a financial sanction for us not allowing to show a game that we get no financial reward for, I don’t think that would make too much sense. We are at a little bit of a watershed moment now, we have to stand up and say ‘no, we can’t allow this to continue’,” said Martin, in an interview with Off The Ball today.

“Ultimately we may come to an agreement (with RTÉ). There are no games scheduled, which feeds into the problem. I couldn’t tell you when RTÉ want to come, or if they want to come to show us in Tallaght again this year.

“We may not be challenging for the league so they may not bother with us. We don’t know. But I’m guessing by the time Shamrock Rovers v Shelbourne comes along (October 4), that’s a game people will want to see. We’ll be strongly considering whether we will allow that.

“From the club’s position, we just want to provoke a conversation. It’s something League of Ireland clubs have given out about for many years. We just find it incredibly frustrating because we have no clarity and understanding if and when games will be on (TV). The European games have really just brought it home to us in the last couple of months.

“You think of the teams we have played. We have sold rights packages to Slovenia, Greece and the Czech Republic. The only national broadcaster who has not taken a game has been Ireland. That’s before we even get into getting a rights fee from the broadcaster. That would be standard. For any of the clubs we come across they get a fee, we have not even requested a fee from RTÉ.

“We’re now of the view that we have to consider if we will allow them to show our games before the end of the season, because it’s frustrating for them just to take our product and not pay for it. If we don’t start valuing our own product, no one else will. For us it was really born out of frustration. We want to start the conversation. That involves the FAI, how they sell the rights and the transparency around that. With the growth of the league, I think now is the time the clubs start taking a bit of ownership of this and seeing where we can go with it.”

Martin revealed how if Rovers had drawn Swedish champions Malmo, rather than PAOK for their Europa League play-off, then the Dublin 24 club would have been in line for a six-figure sum from Sweden for TV rights.

“We play PAOK on Thursday, but if we had drawn Malmo, we would have got a six-figure sum from Swedish TV for our rights package on that game. We get zero in Ireland,” said Martin.

“You take a country like Slovenia, a smaller nation with two million people, soccer is not their national sport, it’s handball, but Slovenian TV still picked up the game (third-round tie v Celje) and still paid a rights package. We have to place value on the quality of what we’re doing.”

As well as missing out on rights fees, Martin added that as a result of the European games not being shown on TV this summer, Rovers are also losing out on potential advertising revenue from Irish companies.

“We had a sponsor on to the club yesterday, a global sponsor and a household name, they are delighted we raised this point because they were under the impression from the club and from RTÉ soundbites in the past, that the Irish champions would always be on the national broadcaster during the European run,” said Martin, who took the role in June 2023, having also previously played for the club.

“That would be a large part of their rationale for sponsoring the club in terms of the exposure they get from European games.

“We have LED (advertising boards) around the stadium, but we didn’t sell one LED advertising minute to an Irish company because the game was not on Irish TV. We have sold LED minutes to Icelandic, Czech, Slovenian and Greek companies, all because they know the game will be shown live in their country, that there will be eyeballs on it, a high-profile Champions League or Europa League game.

“We just don’t have that mentality in Ireland for some reason. There is a poor perception of the league when there should not be. Rovers, St Pat’s, Shels, and all these great clubs, within five or six years all of our international players will have been rooted through these clubs. The league is growing exponentially and we need people to put a value on that.”

Martin shared how RTÉ visited their Roadstone training base before last week’s victory over Celje to interview Bradley and Graham Burke, but when the Rovers CEO turned on the TV later that evening, he saw that Montrose had used archive footage from six months ago in the bulletin.

“The picking and choosing is the thing that frustrates us. Before the Celje game, RTÉ came to the training ground to interview Stephen but when you watched the actual footage on the TV later that night, they splice into us on the training pitch,” he said.

“I saw Rory Gaffeny on the pitch, he’s been injured for a long time but I thought ‘oh Rory is back’. But he wasn’t. It was actually footage from six months ago. The players are all wearing woolly hats and jackets because it was footage from last December.

“Even in the piece promoting the game last week, we feel there is an indifference being shown to us because they don’t even show any new footage. It was a bright summer’s day, and the footage they showed of the players training – to make it look like they were on location – was from six months ago in the middle of winter.

“To come up, do some interviews, use old footage and not show the game, we feel we’re a lot better than that. Every other nation we come up against is better than that.”

Martin also called for greater transparency for clubs in gaining access to the TV rights deals between the league and TV companies, and revealed that the Hoops receive nothing for changing kick-off times to accommodate broadcasts.

“The clubs have not been involved in any of those conversations before. Any of our attempts to see media deals or what the monetary value of the deals are, that is not forthcoming,” he said.

“We don’t know what it looks like. If there is a tendering process, we (the league) want to be part of that. We have a media deal with LOI TV and we are compelled under that participation agreement to deliver components of that, but when we ask for a copy of the actual commercial agreement that we are party to, the FAI would not provide it to us. That’s incredibly frustrating. We want full transparency and we want to be part of the process.

“Virgin have come on board this year and we as a club would be very supportive of them. They are a private commercial entity so it’s slightly different. But we play traditionally on Friday nights at 8pm at Tallaght Stadium, and have done for years.

“But we were asked to change our kick-off time this year to 7.45pm to facilitate TV and any potential round-up from the grounds. When we asked how much we would be paid to facilitate that, we were told ‘nothing’.

“Just something strategic from RTÉ would be great, just tell us what your strategic outlook is on the league. If you go onto RTÉ’s website and look up their strategy document, it’s from 2022 and delivered by Dee Forbes (former RTÉ director general).”

On the club’s FAI Cup appeal, Martin added: “It’s ongoing. I think we have a hearing scheduled for next week. We resubmitted documents last week, the FAI have up to four working days to submit their documents, then we have a number of days to review those documents again. There is a hearing scheduled for, I think next Thursday week (29th).”

Meanwhile, as Bradley’s men target the Europa League group stage, the Rovers boss said today that Johnny Kenny is expected to return to action next week, while he awaits news on the injured Rory Gaffney. Captain Roberto Lopes picked up a knock in last week’s extra-time victory and will be assessed this week. The club are hoping Danny Mandroiu’s paperwork goes through in time to feature on Thursday, after the ex-Ireland U-21 cap returned to the club on a short-term deal yesterday.