At last night’s board meeting in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, delegates gave mixed views on the new arrangement, which will see Sky cover 14 games on an exclusive basis. In pointing out that most of these matches will be in addition to, rather than replacing, current coverage, Murphy also took aim at the attention RTÉ give to Gaelic games.

“Last year, there were 94 senior inter-county games played,” he said, “and only 40 were televised, with 54 not shown at all.

“Of the 29 qualifiers, four were covered, two by RTÉ and two by TV3, whereas Sky will show eight qualifiers on Saturday evenings. The context in which we must look at this is that RTÉ does little for the national league and nothing for the club championship.

“Other sports have games shown live with small attendances. Why is RTÉ accommodating these fixtures when those that support the sport don't go?

“On the eve of last year’s All-Ireland hurling final replay, there was a sports programme on RTÉ featuring cricket, tennis and a whole variety of sports with no reference to the replay. I know that a protest was made to RTÉ and it was disdainfully rejected.

“BBC Northern Ireland didn’t even consider the result worth mentioning, no reference in any of its sports programmes even though 83,000 people were at a match two hours down the road. That’s the type of treatment the GAA is receiving.

“In addition, as a board, knowing what we are looking for with regard to redevelopment of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, I wouldn’t like to be critical of the GAA on that basis.”

Frank Long (Bandon) lamented the fact that people abroad will be able to watch GAA games for free whereas those in Ireland will not.

“We’re now telling people in Melbourne that they can get it for nothing but people working for clubs might have to pay, which is appalling.

“With all decisions in the past, we’ve been able to discuss them at grassroots. Let it be democratic and we’ll take it, but I fear that it’ll go from 14 matches to 28 or 30 in three years. With the economic situation, more people are throwing out Sky than getting it in.”

Valley Rovers delegate Denis O’Riordan said that it was “a big decision taken by a small number”.

“Where does ‘buy Irish’ come in all of this?” he asked.

“I’m convinced that it’s the thin end of the wedge, in three years RTÉ will be competing with Sky for All-Ireland semi-finals and finals and Rupert Murdoch would blow them out of the water.”