Viewers complain as RTÉ Player suffers commentary nightmare for World Cup opener

RTÉ experiencing a bad start to the campaign.

We're underway in Sydney as the Republic of Ireland face off against the tournament co-hosts Australia and people watching back home are already encountering some problems. There are no issues on the pitch as Ireland continue to battle, rather it's at home where RTÉ Player viewers have had a nightmare trying to watch on from across the world. As soon as the game kicked off this morning, viewers in their droves started to notice that the commentary on the national broadcaster's online player was completely out of sync with the action on the pitch. Fans took to Twitter to complain to the broadcaster.

Fix the sound @RTEsoccer

— Richard Chambers (@newschambers) July 20, 2023

HEY @rte ANY CHANCE YOU COULD SYNC THE AUDIO WITH THE PICTURES FOR THE IRELAND AUSTRALIA MATCH

— David O'Doherty (@phlaimeaux) July 20, 2023

The broadcaster was well aware of the issue and tweeted shortly after the complaints that it was working on a fix.

We're aware of audio issues and working to rectify them as quickly as possible.

— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) July 20, 2023

After a while, the audio syncing seemed to have been fixed, but in doing so the quality dipped massively, with George Hamilton and co-commentator Stephanie Zambra sounding extremely tinny and cutting out constantly. Let's see if the issues are fixed for the start of the second half..

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• “She’s quite blunt, straight to the point” – Stephanie Zambra speaks about working under Ireland manager Vera Pauw.