Judging by the media coverage, or relative lack of it, you would never think that League of Ireland club Bohemians managed an excellent draw – getting an away goal in the process – against Giovanni Trapattoni’s old Club Red Bull Salzburg.Instead, the papers have been full of pictures of Real Madrid diver and showboater, Cristiano Ronaldo, in training at Carton House, near Maynooth.
Incredibly, it seems that Ireland’s answer to Pravda, RTE, don’t consider the return leg of the Champion’s league worth covering either, when every Sunday their cameras can be found at obscure GAA grounds throughout the country.
RTE claim that they’ve “heard all the excuses” when it comes to people understandably not stumping up €160 a year for the licence fee.
What’s theirs?
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3 comments:
Hi GB,
your are touching a point that drives me mad almost since I am living in Ireland - wich is over 13 years at this stage:
(rant mode on) there is no support for local soccer (or rugby-) teams whatsoever, but many hundreds, if not thousand fly over to England to watch ManU (or some other team) playing in the Premier League and pay a small fortune for season tickets. You have packed stadiums in Ireland when there is an international on, but only a couple of hundred, if you're lucky, at Eircom league matches. And I would not think that there will be a huge crowd attending Boh's return leg match against Salzburg. So I reckon RTE is only following, and probably has to go by the obvious public interest: pay millions to show some Internationals, support GAA big time - and don't show the great achievements of local clubs like Bohemians. No wonder that every young lad who is able to kick a ball, tries to get to the U.K. to be a Premier League star - or at least wears a shirt of some English Club. (rant mode off)
Soccer: I'm not a fan. but what I can't understand is, as Sven points out, so many people support foreign clubs but couldn't be bothered getting off their backsides and supporting their home teams. Sport in Ireland suffers from a massive lack of support. People (especially politicians) are quick to jump on the bandwagon when there is any small measure of international success, but don't bother supporting individual or team sports from the bottom up.
In my sport (weightlifting) you have to put in 10,000 hours of quality training, have a full time coach and support team (physios, masseuse) before you can compete at World level, and another 2,000 - 3,000 hours training before you can think about getting into the top positions. Yet, until you're in the top positions the Department of Sport don't want to hear about you.
As one athlete put it to me recently, they'll wait until you've dug the hole, then offer you a shovel and take all the credit.
League of Ireland Clubs are never going to get anywhere until soccer fans start going to every single game, supporting their clubs on the stands and in the banks and it would take decades to make a difference. Do the Irish, accustomed as they are to supporting only successful foreign teams, have the stomach for that? Sadly, I doubt it.
that Ireland’s answer to Pravda, RTE, ...
like that one, GM.
When you check out www.sport.orf.at, there should be at least a livestream there during the match.
But they also did not mention the three bohemians fans beating down and robbing a 83 y.o. lady in Salzburg last week, did they?
And I agree with Sven: It's a shame when all the media coverage is only for british soccer.
I would compare that with Germany and Austria: If Austrian broadcaster ORF would only send german Bundesliga, people would be on the barricades immideately. But here on this Island???
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