Eamon Dunphy is no longer in the employ of RTÉ and he is finding it liberating.
Never one to hold his tongue for too long, on subjects that stirred him, the former Millwall and Ireland footballer has launched a couple of broadsides at RTE since he announced his departure during the week.
Dunphy, who has worked as a journalist and football pundit for four decades, came out firing in his column with the Daily Star and accused RTE of hiring certain pundits as gimmicks and being swayed by ‘keyboard warriors’.
In a wide-ranging Sunday Business Post interview with Tom Lyons, Dunphy opens up further still on his departure from RTE, the loss of journalistic edge at the state broadcaster and his shock at FAI chief executive John Delaney speaking highly of him.
He believes that both himself and former RTÉ football anchor Bill O’Herlihy both clicked as they considered themselves to be journalists that challenged conventions and norms in the footballing world. Because they were not afraid to ask and answer the tough questions. He says:
“RTÉ have lost their nerve hugely, and that is something that can’t be fixed, except by strong people, but they want strong people out the door. They weren’t unhappy this week when I said I was leaving.”
Dunphy reveals that his relationship with RTÉ was fractious in his final years there and that he once received a ‘yellow card’ for expressing his dissatisfaction too vociferously after one Champions League broadcast.
By that stage, O’Herlihy had been replaced by Darragh Maloney in the presenter’s chair. Stating his belief that RTÉ is ageist, Dunphy says:
“Bill didn’t go of his own volition. He was badly hurt and told he was too old. He wasn’t too old. He chose – being a good PR man – to go himself, but he didn’t want to go.”
O’Herlihy was at RTÉ from 1965 to 2014 and, at the age of 75, left the station after the 2014 World Cup. He passed away less than a year later.
Dunphy will continue to work as a journalist, he says, and securing a new sponsor for his podcast ‘The Stand’ has enabled him to step away from his previous, long-term employer.
