‘To not have Tyrone and Monaghan on tv in this day and age is absurd’

Three-time All-Ireland winner Enda McGinley has said that it's absurd that Tyrone's Ulster SFC opener with Monaghan later this month will not be broadcast on live television.

RTÉ's decision to screen more games in the Super 8 series than the early provincial rounds means that BBC Northern Ireland viewers will lose a significant number of their Ulster senior football championship matches in 2018. RTE will show the winner of Fermanagh/Armagh V Tyrone/Monaghan on Sunday June 3 and the Ulster final on Sunday June 24. Meanwhile Fermanagh's game against Armagh on Saturday 19 May and the Down v Antrim game on Saturday 26 May will both be shown live on the BBC iPlayer, while the first semi-final on 3 June and the Ulster final three weeks later will be live on BBC Two Northern Ireland. There will be full deferred coverage of the four other ties and it's a scenario that McGinley thinks is absurd and an issue he hopes the GAA will allow the additional games to be covered.

"In this day and age, to have a game like Tyrone vs Monaghan, which will surely sell out the 19,000-odd capacity of Healy Park, not covered on TV seems absurd. Supporters, TV companies, provincial and county boards and the players and teams themselves would all benefit," McGinley wrote in his Irish News column. "Hopefully sense can prevail and, sure, if the GAA make a few extra pounds from it, who could complain about that?..."

McGinley also stated that the loss of TV coverage for the provincial championships acts as further evidence of disregard for the competition with the Super 8's now taking clear preference among broadcasters.

"For the Ulster Council themselves, it must be frustrating that having proven to be the reason for maintaining the increasingly maligned provincial structure (along with the Munster hurling Championship), it is essentially cast aside from TV coverage because of the arrival of the Super-8s. "The arguments for doing away or changing the role of provincial Championships in the All-Ireland race have been made often and has even been alluded to by members of the GAA hierarchy. The creation of the Super-8s appeared to be a further step, along with the All-Ireland Qualifiers, which completely change the value of the provincial competitions. "Allowing them to lose out on a massive amount of TV coverage acts as further evidence of disregard for competitions."