Eastenders More Important Than Irish Home International Games, Says FAI

[Michael Nugent]

I live in Drumcondra, so when I went out for my Sunday papers I took the opportunity to chat with some Cork fans outside Croke Park, suggesting that they also support Cork next week in Dalymount.

Among others I met Liam Kearney's dad (Liam plays for Ireland's U-19s with Brian Kerr) and generally I felt there was good scope for promoting the National league among GAA fans.

So I came home in a pretty good mood, until I read about the FAI's astonishing submission to the Government's broadcasting commission on protecting sports events.

I didn't think it was possible for the FAI to be even more destructive of Irish football than they have already shown themselves to be, but this time they have surpassed even themselves.

The FAI - the body charged with promoting Irish football - is actively and officially arguing to our Government that competitive home Irish international football games "do not have special general resonance for the people of Ireland", and "do not have a distinct cultural importance for the country and its people" and therefore should not be listed for protection.

To back up its low opinion of Irish football, the FAI proudly lists a number of television programmes which had more viewers than the home qualifier against Iran last November, including Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Eastenders, The Rose of Tralee and Fair City.

Whether the FAI actually believes this twisted logic or not, it is absolutely astonishing that they would put it in writing in a formal submission to a Government that is giving Irish football 57m euro over the next 3 years.

And if this what they are prepared to say publicly about our competitive home international matches, what on earth must they think about the National League?

Frankly, if the FAI have so little faith in Irish football, they should get out of the way and let people who believe in it promote it.

Michael Nugent

[brine2]

Back door boys through to the final. The GAA is even more farcical than the FAI.

[pete]

Michael,

There is no well run irish sporting organisation in this country. The FAI are useless but eL/LOI people have known this for years as have to put up with them on a daily & not yearly basis.

Also if you think the FAI are corrupt then you should probably have a read of the book i'm reading at the moment on FIFA corruption (How they Stole the Game - David Yallop).

btw watched the Cork "footballers" yesterday on tv - if such a laughable match/fight was carried out at the cross people would be slagging city off for years.

Dragging it totally off topic now - The GAA will have massive problems in the coming years when money starts into the whole scene - officials, players & fans won't stand for people avoiding suspensions & teams allowed extra subs 'n stuff when the euro is involved.

[pete]

Just read the FAI submission here (pdf file) & while they make a few spurious claims they do have point under the terms of the legislation.

The law says that for sports events to be listes they have to be national events that 'bring the country together' & draw viewers from people not normally associated with the sport. Theres no doubt you could add the World Cup or Euro championships under that but if you look at the viewership levels of qualifying games they well blow the championship levels. We all know people glued to the irish matches int he World Cup who are very unlikely to watch the upcoming qualifying games.

Was interesting to see that RTE only started paying the FAI for matches sicne 1996!!! Surely no coincidence they started showing live eL matches arpound the same time?

[Michael Nugent]

Hi Reb -

That's not the criteria in the legislation.

It's just one of the many inaccurate and misleading items in the FAI's submission.

I'll post the detail later.

Michael

[Michael Nugent]

Irish Fans United made a written and oral presentation to today's public forum on listing of major sports events.

As part of it, we responded in writing as follows to the main points made in the written submission of the FAI.

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1. The FAI Accepts The Principle and Practice of Listing

Under the heading Key Messages (1.1), the FAI accept that the finals stages of the European Championships and World Cup “are appropriate for designation”.

· This is critical in reading the rest of the FAI’s submission.

· It contradicts one of their key conclusions (9.4), that the Government should not list any events and that “market forces should determine which broadcaster should have the rights to televise sporting events.”

· The FAI accepts the principle and the practice of listing matches, without any of the safeguards or regulatory impact analyses that they refer to later, and without any apparent concerns about the financial implications for the organisers… but only, it seems, for matches that they do not own the rights to.

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2. The FAI’s Two Main Objections Contradict Each Other

Under Key Messages (1.2), the FAI object to the listing of Irish competitive home internationals on two grounds that contradict each other. Firstly, that the matches are not events of major importance (the FAI later inaccurately claims that this is because the matches are not popular enough with the viewing public). And secondly, because the matches represent effectively all of their valuable broadcast properties.

· Both of these points cannot be true. These matches are either popular and valuable, or not popular and not valuable. The FAI cannot have it both ways. Irish Fans United believes that the matches are both popular and valuable, and that the value is created by a combination of private and public contributions.

· The viewing figures that the FAI later produce, to claim that the games are not popular, in fact show the exact opposite: they are absolutely excellent viewing figures for the time of day that the matches are screened.

· The FAI themselves, on page 3 of their development strategy of last December, describe one of their strengths as “intensive exposure of football in the mass media due to football being the most popular sport in Ireland, indeed the world.”

· The value that this creates does not flow from the FAI as a private business. It is created by the combined and interactive contributions of the team and the fans, and the use of the general paraphenalia of the state (the name Ireland, national anthem, flag, the claim to represent the nation, etc.).

· As FAI President Milo Corcoron put it in the match programme for the recent friendly against Denmark, “We’ve said it here a number of times before: the Irish team and the Irish supporters feed off each other in a manner that is as remarkable as it is mutually beneficial. And long may it be so.”

· Irish Fans United believes that these matches are a popular and valuable combination of a private and public good, and that the listing legislation recognises this by limiting the exercise of what would otherwise be private property rights in the interests of the public good.

· We will now show that these matches do meet the criteria for listing, and show that the value of these matches, when measured as a proportion of total FAI turnover, is far less significant than their submission would have us believe.

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3. Qualifying Matches Do Meet The Criteria For Listing

The FAI argues (1.2) that the qualifying matches do not meet the specified criteria for designation which define events of major importance to society.

· They state, accurately, that the criteria for determining whether an event is of major importance to society are (1) all of the circumstances; (2) the extent to which the event has a special general resonance for the people of Ireland; and (3) the extent to which the event has a geenrally recognised distinct cultural importance for the people of Ireland.

· They then fail to state that the legislation goes on to say that, in determining whether these criteria have been met, the Minister may take into account (1) whether the event involves participation by a national or non-national team or by irish persons; and (2) past practice and experience with regard to television coverage of the event or simiar events.

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4. They Do So Even Under The FAI’s Measurement Criteria

·Instead of the factors named in the legislation, which clearly point towards the events being suitable for listing, the FAI introduce their own criteria: television audience figures for previous similar events. But cultural importance does not depend on audience figures (e.g. museums and art galleries).

· However, the FAI then use figures that they think show that our qualifying games are not popular with the public. In fact the figures show the exact opposite.

· They state that only one qualifying game (the home play-off with Iran) ranked in the top 20 Irish television audience figures in 2001. In fact this match, which was incidentally in 13th place, was the only sporting event to appear in the 2001 top 20. By this measurement criteria, it was the single most important sporting event of the year for the Irish public. And its audience of 543,000 was 93% of the audience for Robbie Keane’s late equaliser against Germany in Japan, a match which the FAI have already stated should have been listed.

· They then give figures for the other qualifying matches. Average audience figures for qualifying matches were 405,000 (but the FAI chooses the more restricted category of just the matches before the qualifying play-off to give an average audience of 374,000). These are remarkably high audiences for television events being shown at times that include lunchtime and 4.30 on workdays and against opponents that include Andorra and Estonia. Presumably the FAI were a little more positive about these figures when they were negotiating with Sky.

· When the FAI is not trying to pretend that our competitive international games are unimportant to the Irish nation, they say very different things. Here’s Milo Corcoran in the match programme for the recent friendly against Russia: “Tehran, for all its nail-biting drama, was but a thrilling crescendo to the ever-increasing swell of excitement which swept the sporting public along on a tidal wave of emotions since that wonderful first game against Holland seventeen months ago… But perhaps the most beneficial effect of all lies in the boost which the game of soccer will experience throughout the country in the months ahead. Some of the present squad were in primary school when they thrilled to Ray Houghton’s goal in the Yankee Stadium. How many more boys and girls will be inspired this summer when the lads take to the field in Japan wearing the green which means so much to them and us. There surely are great days ahead. Let’s celebrate!”

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[Michael Nugent]

5. Listing Will Not Restrain The Development of Irish Football

Also under Key Messages (1.2), the FAI says that losing these rights would “impose severe financial restraints on the development of the game at both a domestic and international level...” They later support this incorrect argument with inaccurate and misleading statements about their finances.

· On page 3 they inaccurately state that, “commercial income received from the activities of the senior team is the largest source of income and effectively funds the activities of the Association”. But according to their 2002 annual report, senior international match income is the largest source of income (9.1 million euro out 18.8 million) with total commercial income accounting for 5.7 million euro.

· They then state that, “television income currently represents approximately 66% of total commercial income for the year ended 31 March 2002”. If this is the case, then total television income for last year alone was 3.7 million euro, or twice the annual amount that they say they will get from the Sky contract.

· In their 2002 annual report they say that they doubled commercial income last year “largely as a result of increased television revenue because of the quality of opposition played”. So, however they have structured their television deals, the 1.8 million a year from Sky is clearly far less significant to their finances than they are suggesting.

· In fact the Sky deal, compared to last year’s finances, would have represented less than 10% of their formal turnover (and less than 5% of their actual turnover for the development of the game, which we will explain later). And given that the real added income is the difference between the Sky deal and what they would have got from RTE, the Sky deal becomes even less significant still.

· There is another key reason why the FAI does not need the Sky money. Over the past two years, they have spent a total of 7m euro paying off various groups associated with the Eircom Park deal. Now that these costs are behind them, even with no change in revenue, it frees up the equivalent of over twice the amount of the Sky deal per year.

· Why do we say that the FAI’s real turnover is twice the formal turnover in their accounts? Because they have effective control over the distribution throughout football of a minimum of 19 million euro a year (for last year and the next two years) under a deal negotiated with the Government. This money is to be used for the development of the game at domestic level, which is part of what the FAI’s submission claims is endangered by the listing.

· They now claim that this money is somehow nothing to do with them because “it does not appear in their accounts”. But last December, they said the exact opposite in their development strategy: “The Government has committed to providing the FAI with funding of 19m euro a year for 3 years… part of this will be repayable out of our sale of corporate boxes but this will be counterbalanced by (an additional fund of 38m euro based on FAI matching funds)… the challenge facing the FAI and its members is to identify worthwhile projects on which to spend these greatly increased resources.”

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6. Listing Will Have Virtually No Impact On The Domestic Game

Also under Key Messages (1.2), the FAI says that losing these rights would “seriously hamper the FAI’s attempts to develop a viable domestic professional league...” This is possibly the most misleading statement in the FAI’s submission.

· On 13 July FAI General Secretary Brendan Menton wrote an article for the Irish Times. It began: "More investment in grounds, more development funds, extra youth initiatives, more support for the domestic league in Ireland and extra resources at senior coaching level. That's the result of the television rights package which the FAI has secured with Sky and TV3."

· Irish Fans United said at the time that this was misleading, because this was exactly what the 19 million euro a year government development grants were for. Indeed, the FAI had already launched a comprehensive four-year development strategy last December, based on this money being available. It represents ten times the amount per year of the Sky deal.

· At its AGM the FAI admitted that none of the Sky money would be used to invest in grounds or to directly develop the game at domestic level. Instead the priorities are non-senior internationals and the FAI’s coaching and technical department. Last on their list, they say only that the domestic game “will be examined for increased opportunity for extra marketing.”

· Finally, the FAI make great play in their submission about how they leveraged RTE’s desire to show the international matches live to force them to also show domestic matches. They even say in their conclusions that listing would prevent them from using this leverage in future. But they have not done so in this deal. Sky are to show the international matches live, with absolutely no commitment to the domestic game.

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7. Listing Will Not Eliminate Broadcasting Competition in Ireland

Finally under Key Messages (1.3), the FAI says that designation will have the effect of eliminating competition in the market for broadcast rights for events in Ireland”. This completely underestimates the strength of TV3.

· TV3 is owned 45% by Granada Media, the largest provider of programmes to the ITV network, and 45% by CanWest Global Communications Corporation which reported operating profits of $171 million for the quarter ended May 31, 2002.

[RamblersWeb]

Originally posted by Michael Nugent
· There is another key reason why the FAI does not need the Sky money. Over the past two years, they have spent a total of 7m euro paying off various groups associated with the Eircom Park deal. Now that these costs are behind them, even with no change in revenue, it frees up the equivalent of over twice the amount of the Sky deal per year.

[/B]

Good! Even MORE to spend on the development of Irish football. Maybe FINALLY we'll start seeing initiatives like properly funded youth academies,

PLUS the government in today's paper seem to be completely rethinking if not abandoning the national stadium - what will the FAI do then? It's gonna be back to the drawing board with the plans for an eircom park type venture... with the funding needed how exactly???

· Finally, the FAI make great play in their submission about how they leveraged RTE’s desire to show the international matches live to force them to also show domestic matches. They even say in their conclusions that listing would prevent them from using this leverage in future. But they have not done so in this deal. Sky are to show the international matches live, with absolutely no commitment to the domestic game.

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[/B]

Yes but the leverage has been used with TV3 instead!!

[RamblersWeb]

after reading the FAI document myself, the most interesting point is the attitude to qualifying games taken in other countries with such a list...

Two countries list qualifiers

"all matches involving the Italian national football team, at home and away, in official competitions;"

"The German national football team’s home and away matches."

"It is significant that the qualifying matches of England,
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have not been listed." - nor have Austria

"· The majority of EU Member States do not see any merit in designating events, let alone football matches."


And to make another point...
What is the 'Irish Fans United' position regarding the listing of the FAI Cup Final and why have I not seen it mentionned?

[Michael Nugent]

Hi RamblersWeb,

Just on the last point, we have asked for the FAI Cup Final to be listed, on the basis that it is the football equivalent of the GAA finals which are listed.

We did that in our original submission to the Minister, which we posted here a week or so ago.

What the above post is is an additional submission from us, responding to points made in the FAI's submission.

Michael

[pete]

Saw a good bit of the Hatchet job show RTE had on last night. Was very little criticism of RTE & the RTE speaker seemed to be given a free ride to say what he wanted to.

The big difference between Italy, Germany etc is they actually have some competition amoung terrestial tv -Germany in particular is suppose to have a very competitive tv market.

The really truth which was slighly got at on the tv programme last night was RTE were shown up to the amateurs they are - spend 6 months negotiating & still more than 30% below that offered for the previous tv deal - this on the back of the World Cup which is bound to increase the tv viewers.

In light of the RTE deal with the IRFU got 3 million it serves them right they didn't get the FAI matches for half the price.