5 key questions for RTE and GAA ahead of committee hearing

Long before the Ryan Tubridy payments controversy, there was the GAAGO controversy.

This emerged in late spring when disgruntled hurling and football fans voiced their anger because some of their favourite matches were not available free-to-air, but instead were put behind a paywall on the GAAGO online platform.

Today, representatives from both RTÉ and the GAA will appear before the Oireachtas Committee on Sport and Media.

They will be joined by other sporting organisations and broadcasters, but the main topic of interest for politicians will be the GAAGO controversy.

It is unfortunate for RTÉ, that it finds itself in front of an Oireachtas committee today dealing with this issue on a week when the organisation has had such a torrid time dealing with a separate controversy.

But for sports fans, and TV licence fee payers, this issue may be just as important to them, and they will want answers to some key questions, especially considering both organisations receive such enormous amounts of the public's money.

Here are five key questions the committee will want answers to today:

1) Who decided which matches should be placed behind a paywall, and which would be free-to-air?

Committee members will want to know whether some high-profile matches were deliberately placed behind a paywall to drive subscriptions to GAAGO.

Who decided which matches should be shown on which platforms? And who signed off on decisions to keep certain big games away from free-to-air television viewers?

2) Were any other broadcasters approached when Sky Television decided not to renew its GAA rights?

This is a key question for the GAA.

It has already been made clear by RTÉ that the broadcaster was not in a position to show every match on television because of