How much do RTE pay Dunphy and the soccer pundits?

Snickers Man

Becau
se as a licence fee payer I think whatever it is is too much.

Just listening to them waffle about Ireland's prospects after our scabby draw against Russia.

Dunphy is adamant we are ahead of Slovakia on away goals. Bill is pointing out very tentatively that if all three of Ireland, Russia and Slovakia finish level on points (which is extremely likely) we will be out. (This is true)

Dunphy is going "No No" The other gobdaws are remaining silent and then they go quickly to ad break while they sort it out.

DO YOUR FECKIN' HOMEWORK, LADS!!!

We're almost certainly out of it now. Fact.

See what odds the bookies are offering on a draw between Slovakia and Russia. That'll let you know.

Our expensive pundits won't.

Rubik.

Around 300,000 euro.

Snickers Man

Well for that sort of money he really should know the basic facts about his subject. It's not like it's hard to look them up.

A cub reporter would be better informed.

HalloweenJack

They're not there for facts, they're there for arguments.

Anytime any of them, perhaps not Brady, are questioned on football outside the UK, there lack of knowledge becomes all too apparent, i.e. Dunphy as the "expert" on Spanish and Italian football. They even sometimes show a lack of knowledge on UK football, their great love.

However, it's mostly irrelevant because they are not there for facts, they are there for opinions/arguments.

Snickers Man

But those arguments have to be based on an appreciation of the facts. And if they didn't know how a tie between two or more countries on equal points would be sorted out, what are their opinions worth?

The likelihood of a three way tie has now diminished following Armenia's win over Slovakia last night but had Slovakia won, and then drawn with Russia, neither result being regarded as unlikely before last night, a three way tie between Ireland, Russia and Slovakia would have very probably arisen.

It was clear that none of these highly paid pundits had a clue how that would have been sorted, and dear old Bumbling Bill, who was actually quite right, was halting and unsure about his facts, claiming that "someone told me this" while Dunphy was shooting him down with his typical bombast and arrogance.

And for the record, four very intuitive clicks from the UEFA.COM home website reveals this page of regulations.

Match system for the qualifying competition
......
Equality of points after the group matches
7.04 If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:
a) higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the
teams in question;
b) superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in
question;
c) higher number of goals scored in the group matches played among the teams
in question;
d) higher number of goals scored away from home in the group matches played
among the teams in question;
e) if, after applying criteria a) to d) to several teams, two or more teams still have an equal ranking, the criteria a) to d) will be reapplied to determine the ranking of these teams. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria f) to j) apply;
f) superior goal difference in all group matches;
g) higher number of goals scored in all group matches;
h) higher number of goals scored away from home in all group matches;
i) fair play ranking in all group matches;
j) drawing of lots.


If you think that looking up pertinent facts is beneath the dignity of such pundits, can you imagine how Mr Dunphy would have poured scorn on a footballer with such a distaste for some of the more mundane duties of his profession?

"No values! No commitment! An unprofessional sunshine boy and fraud! Not a good pro!" yadda yadda yadda

Quite.

omerin

Emo keeps saying the same things over and over again. Having said that they are far better then anything out there. Look at the the highlights program last night, Kenny Eyebrows and whatcahcallhim were rubbish. Emo and the boys are worth every cent.

Also Emo isn't slow in taking a self inflicted pay cut

Dob74

Dunphy isnt there for his soccer knowledge, he's only there to ster things up.
It looks like RTE are crooming Richard Sadler to take over as number one crank.
Entertainment not true soccer punditry

MrStuffins

This thread appeared out of nowhere, but if you actually paid attention to what you were watching, you would have realised that it was a misunderstanding.

Yes Bill was right, but Dunphy thought he was talking about the possibility of it just being Ireland and Slovakia on equal points. In this case, ireland go through. SO he was right!

Snickers Man

MrStuffins wrote: »

This thread appeared out of nowhere, but if you actually paid attention to what you were watching, you would have realised that it was a misunderstanding.

Yes Bill was right, but Dunphy thought he was talking about the possibility of it just being Ireland and Slovakia on equal points. In this case, ireland go through. SO he was right!

You dare to contradict Snickers Man!!

Look. This point is moot in footballing terms because Slovakia lost at home to Armenia that night. But at the time, our qualification was out of our hands because even if we won our last two games, if Russia and Slovakia had drawn with each other and won their remaining games, we were out.

But that’s a footballing matter. What I’m discussing here is the media matter, which is that pundits should be as knowledgeable as possible of the facts surrounding the situation they are commenting on.

I think it was clear from the conversation that none of them had really checked. Here is a verbatim transcript (with some spurious waffling omitted) from the night. You can check the accuracy of it on RTE Player from 2: 34: 30 onwards.

The stuff in italics is what I imagine they were thinking internally.

The stuff in normal text is what they were saying out loud.

Bill: Maybe we can look at the table again because if Ireland win their last two matches…

Liam: ..which we should do..

Bill: ..which we should do. We will qualify unless both Slovakia and Russia win their remaining games and draw when they play each other. Now. What does that look like do you think.?
Phew. This is all beginning to look complicated. I hope I’ve read that prepared speech properly. Never mind, I’m only the compere. These lads will know their stuff!………

Eamonn: Slovakia have to play the Russians in Slovakia. That’s a huge match. I think the best result for us Liam is a draw, is it?
I can’t be arsed working all this out. Come on Brady, you sunshine boy. Help me out here.

Liam: Uh…mmm.. yeah. There’s still lots of permutations. But Slovakia have to go to Macedonia in their last game which won’t be easy. ….
Feck’s sake Eamo. You don’t think I could be arsed researching this stuff? What does RTE give all those unpaid internships to journalism graduates for? That’s their job. Mine is to mouth meaningless platitudes that can pass for optimistic commentary.

Like this.

Liam: Working it out….If things fall our way we can still win this group.


Bill: One caveat. If all three teams finish on level points, then Slovakia and Russia will qualify as they have a better head to head record against each other.
Well now how do ye fellas like that for a delivery of a prepared text? Sleek, authoritative, smooth. Des Lynam eat your bloody heart out.

Eamonn: No. We’ve a better… if we tie...
You’re wrong Bill. You’re only a fancy pants PR man. I played for Millwall. I used to be a pro.

Bill: No. Three teams now.

Eamonn: If we tie with Slovakia on points we go through because we scored a goal in Slovakia.

Bill: Uhh ..yeah..mmn
Oh ****! He’s disagreeing. And as I tell my clients, arrogance and bombast beat accuracy and veracity any day….

Eamonn: I’m telling you Bill. I know this. Bill. I don’t know much..

Bill: That was my understanding but I’ve just received word from on high that this is the score if the three teams are level. That we do not qualify.
I’m passing the buck back to whoever gave me this and I swear to the good Jaysus if one of ye feckers has given me duff information and humiliated me in front of that Jackeen langer ye’ll be out of here and fronting for Fas or Anglo Irish by tomorrow. Remember who’s in power now and whose sage media advice put them there!!!

Eamon: Then I’ll have to accept the superior wisdom from upstairs. .

Ah big swinging Mickey. I never did my homework at school, I don’t see why I should start now just because I’m a meeja celebrity. I’ve got my own table at Lillie’s you know….

Richard Hillman

Its a very amateur set up. The main pundits do no research about a team Ireland are playing or a non English are playing in the champions league. Ive sent in numerous complaints about John Giles not doing his homework. Its very disrespectful to the licence fee payers. Dunphy is treated as some sort of Spanish Football expert just because he watches Revista De La Liga everyweek. He repeats whatever Graham Hunter or Guilleme Balaque says word for word when he has to talk about a Spanish team. O'Herlihy is a very weak presenter. He will never call up Giles or Dunphy when they say something stupid or contradict themselves.

I watch a lot of NFL. The analysis for that is on a different planet to football and especially RTE. For the likes of NBC, they have Chris Collinsworth, who will have a hole disected in a matter of seconds and his yellow pen on the screen telling everyone what exactly happened instantly. On RTE football and football in general, its just a bunch of lads airing their opinions. There is no actual analysis. A competant fan could do what they do. Excluding George Hook even the RTE rugby pundits make the football pundits look stupid and they look like amateurs comapared to BBC and ITV.

RTE football try to market themselves as the best because they are the only people who "Tell it, as its is". Apart from TV3 they are actually the worst on tv and anybody at home could do their jobs.

WHIP IT!

John Giles has forgotten more about football than either of you two cranks will ever know. The RTE panel is the only football panel worth watching. If you want bland stats and spoofers - head off down the pub in your United jersey and watch Jamie Redknapp spouting cliches and kissing arses.

MrStuffins

WHIP IT! wrote: »

John Giles has forgotten more about football than either of you two cranks will ever know. The RTE panel is the only football panel worth watching. If you want bland stats and spoofers - head off down the pub in your United jersey and watch Jamie Redknapp spouting cliches and kissing arses.

That's because John Giles has forgotten everything about football!

Snickers Man

WHIP IT! wrote: »

John Giles has forgotten more about football than either of you two cranks will ever know. The RTE panel is the only football panel worth watching. If you want bland stats and spoofers - head off down the pub in your United jersey and watch Jamie Redknapp spouting cliches and kissing arses.

ROFLMAO! Tell me, just who are the spoofers in this scenario? The guys who bothered to look up the facts, or the wafflers who didn't?

I am not rising to your taunts about "United jersey". This was a media comment, not a footballing one. But your interjection very clearly shows why even the soccer forum on this site has to be subjected to border controls.

Snickers Man

WHIP IT! wrote: »

If you want bland stats and spoofers - head off down the pub in your United jersey and watch Jamie Redknapp spouting cliches and kissing arses.

Did you know that in some fora you can pick up a week's ban for talking disparagingly of respected pundits like Mr Redknapp?

Just a word to the wise. Don't call him a spoofer. Say instead that he "sometimes appears to be unsure of his facts" and you might get away with it.

flogen

This is barely hanging on as a relevant topic for News/Media as it is - if the personal abuse and digs keep up then I'll just lock the thread will be done with it.