GAA president to seek meeting with Taoiseach Simon Harris as GAAGO saga rumbles on

The president of the GAA is to seek a meeting with Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tanáiste Micheál Martin to discuss his recent criticism of the association and its decision to place certain football and hurling fixtures behind a paywall.

Jarlath Burns says he is "very surprised" by criticism, within political circles, of the GAAGO streaming service which is jointly owned by RTÉ and the GAA.

Saturday's Munster SHC clash between Cork and Limerick was shown exclusively by GAAGO as was the Carlow-Kilkenny match in the Leinster SHC. This coming weekend, it will have exclusive live coverage of a number of high profile football matches, including Galway versus Derry.

Under the current contract, GAAGO has the rights to live-stream 38 championship matches a year while RTÉ has the rights to broadcast 35. 

Speaking on Today with Claire Byrne on RTÉ Radio 1, Jarlath Burns defended the streaming service adding that the hurling games would not have been available anywhere but for GAAGO.

"If you try to imagine a world without GAAGO, the rest of these games just would not be broadcast because we only have one broadcast partner (RTÉ). Myself and Tom Ryan, the Ard Stiúrthóir, last Wednesday actually had a meeting with the Sports Minister, Thomas Byrne, and all of his officials. We actually put that on the agenda, GAAGO," he said.

Burns insisted that funds raised through GAAGO and the sale of broadcast rights are crucial to the future of the organisation, particularly given its decision to end commercial ties with alcohol and gambling companies.

"I will make absolutely no apologies for trying to extract as much commercial revenue as we possibly can from our games," he said.

"We do not have the same auctioning power as, for example, the Premier League has. If you look at the Premier League, Arsenal played Man United yesterday. They will make more from that game from broadcast rights than the GAA will make over five years," he added.

During this Monday's interview, Mr Burns stated: "I will be asking for an early meeting with the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste to get them to explain exactly where they are, with regard to the criticism of our association."