GAA invites bids for broadcast rights to games currently on GAAGO

The GAA are seeking "expressions of interest" for media rights within Ireland to broadcast games from the All-Ireland senior football and hurling championships.

The rights will be for the games which GAAGO currently broadcast within Ireland and which were previously behind the Sky Sports paywall.

The GAA are opening the process for purchase of rights to the games shown on GAAGO to all interested parties, which could again include Sky Sports.

Virgin Media, TG4 and even streaming platforms such as Amazon could also bid for the rights, while GAAGO are expected to submit a bid of their own to extend their rights deal.

This move comes after the GAA were advised by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to go to tender on these packages after an initial two-year period with GAAGO.

The streaming platform has been the subject of criticism from members of the public and politicians, unhapy with the volume and status of matches behind a paywall on a service dependant on broadband.

However GAA president Jarlath Burns launched a staunch defence of the service in the wake of Taoiseach Simon Harris saying the GAA had "gotten this wrong" with GAAGO.

Speaking on Today with Claire Byrne on RTÉ Radio 1 in May, Burns said: "I'm very surprised to hear the Taoiseach speaking about this, considering last year we actually sat in front of an Oireachtas committee, we were asked to do so, we did so.

"There were no issues at the end of it, they accepted every argument that we had, all of our rationale, for the fact that we only have one broadcast partner, which is RTÉ – they have 35 matches.

"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 and the