LIAM BRADY, RTÉ’s departing football pundit, has said he is no longer in love with the game.
Brady, 67, provided analysis for the national broadcaster for the last time yesterday for Ireland’s 3-0 win against Gibraltar.
He is regarded as one of the country’s best ever players and has been an RTÉ pundit for the past 25 years, taking a break while part of Giovanni Trapattoni’s management team for the 2010 World Cup qualification campaign.
“Things have changed with football now. I’m not in love with the game anymore,” Brady told Gavin Jennings on RTÉ’s News at One.
“I like watching it and watching the best players. But all the things that surround it are not really for me.
“And then I suppose the arrival of social media in the last 10 years. I’m an old dog and you can’t teach me new tricks.
“So, Twitter and Facebook and things like that, they’re all gobbledegook to me.
“The business side of it, it’s a multi-billion pound business. The ownership of clubs in England, the arrival of these countries, Qatar, Saudi Arabia. I don’t feel it’s been that good for the game to be honest.”
Brady said he did not mean to denigrate Irish players by saying after their 2-1 defeat to Greece last Friday that they were the “worst” he’d seen in his lifetime. Yet he said the country is not producing enough talented players and the future for Ireland is “a bit of a worry”.
“A lot was made of that statement. And I’m sorry if it sounded disrespectful to the players. The players are giving their all,” Brady said.
“But I just feel the talent in this squad just doesn’t compare to the teams in the past. The teams I’ve played in, the teams that Giovanni Trapattoni had or Martin O’Neill had. I think things have gradually got worse in the players we’re producing. It’s a worry.
“Obviously, young Evan Ferguson coming along is going to be a big boost. I really do think he’s a top class player.
“But we used to have five or six players of top class quality. They’re just not there anymore. The future for Ireland is a bit of a worry.
“I had hoped that I was going to finish with a win in Greece and a win tonight. The result the other night has compromised those chances.”
Brady said that “with investment”, Ireland could produce better players.
“If we identified the best young players from 10 to 16 years of age and gave them good coaching, good facilities.
“Made sure they were playing tournaments in Europe and abroad that would give them the knowledge that young players are getting in England and on the continent, I think that would definitely improve things.
“But that takes an awful lot of money. And that money is just not there at the moment.
“I think this thing should have been addressed 20 years ago. But we are where we are.”
Brady lamented the departure of RTÉ’s more outspoken sports pundits, and said that the punditry he did alongside Eamon Dunphy and John Giles, with Bill O’Herlihy as anchor, would probably not be possible to do today.
“It has to be a little bit more dull without Eamon and Joe Brolly. Because they were very controversial figures and they did speak their mind. I don’t think you can speak like that on the TV anymore to be quite honest. Times have changed and you have to move with the times. I think RTÉ have done that.
“That’s not the reason I’m leaving. I’m leaving because I’m 67 years of age. I’ve done 25 years of it and it’s a good number.
“But I think the punditry that we used to have with Eamon and Johnny Giles and Bill O’Herlihy, you probably just can’t do that anymore.”
