One dedicated Irish fan Down Under has splashed the cash to get his hands on the rights to show Ireland's crucial tie against Sweden in Australia
David Feeney, originally from Dublin but now living in Australia, was frustrated with not being able to watch the Irish team on TV when their matches were on, and found out that the reason was because no one had secured the rights to broadcast the Boys in Green down under.
So he got in touch with the German media company that held the rights and made them an offer. His first one was rebuffed, but he raised the second one a bit higher and managed to get both the Ireland match and the England game against Ukraine.
According to
RTE.ie, Feeney paid in the tens of thousands to secure the games, and even used his home as security to borrow the money to pay for them. The match will be broadcast on a closed circuit system in a number of venues across Australia.
He's hoping that this latest foray into the world of media will pay off, but he's not expecting to make any profit from it. At least not personally anyway, as he told
RTE that his wife took a lot of convincing to let him go ahead with the idea and "we have an agreement that if it the venture makes any money, she gets to keep it!".
