JOHN GILES’ FUTURE at RTÉ is up in the air, after the pundit revealed he is no longer contracted to the national broadcaster.
Giles was expected to be part of the regular panel for this Saturday’s game against Scotland, but it was announced that the former player and manager had been dropped.
Giles says that although he had fulfilled his quota under his current deal with RTÉ, they had traditionally been flexible with contracts, and worked extra games free of charge.
He told Newstalk’s Off The Ball that he was available and willing to work this Saturday’s game free of charge, and was disappointed to be overlooked.
“I made it very, very clear that I was available and I wanted to do the match.”There is a contractual situation where I’m contracted to do a certain amount of matches, and I have fulfilled the obligation for those matches. But we’ve always been very flexible on matches that we’ve done, and could do more and do less.”I was prepared to do an extra match, and made it clear, obviously, there was no extra payment for that match,” he said.
“I’m very diappointed. It’s one of the most important games we’ve had in recent times,” he told presenter Ger Gilroy.
Giles also said that he was unhappy not to have received a phonecall from Head of Sport Ryle Nugent, explaining the decision.
“I’ve never spoken to Ryle Nugent about it.”I would have like to get a call from the Head of Sport to explain to me what the situation is,” he added.
But most notably, Giles revealed that his current deal is set to expire at the end of the summer, and as things stand, he is not signed up to cover the end of Ireland’s Euro 2016 qualification campaign.
“I’m not actually contracted at the moment, until the rest of the campaign, so I don’t know what the future holds, we’ll have to wait and see.”
