As sport evolves into a complex global industry, the legal frameworks supporting it have grown equally sophisticated. Emma Richmond, joint managing partner at Whitney Moore, and Aoife Farrelly, barrister and chair of the Sports Law Bar Association, are at the forefront of this shift.
In this episode of Sports Matters, they talks to Ian Kehoe about how grassroots clubs operate like SMEs, grappling with employment law, data protection, and regulatory compliance. Wearable tech and performance tracking have introduced new data privacy concerns, while volunteer-led organisations often lack the legal knowledge to manage risk effectively.
Richmond and Farrelly also highlight how governance structures—like the GAA’s Disputes Resolution Authority—serve as models for efficient, sport-specific adjudication. At the elite level, legal challenges span restrictive sponsorship contracts, IP rights, and disciplinary hearings with limited avenues for representation.
Sports Matters is sponsored by the law firm Whitney Moore.
Ciaran Medlar’s day job is as a partner with BDO, an accountancy firm that, through Medlar’s Sports Advisory Unit, is a major player in sport in Ireland. However, his influence extends far beyond financial spreadsheets. Whether guiding elite athletes through career transitions, negotiating high-stakes sponsorship deals, or helping steer Shamrock Rovers through a golden era, Medlar is one of the most influential figures in Irish sport. Despite the high-profile nature of his work, Medlar has remained extremely low profile. Instead, he prefers to operate away from the headlines, letting his clients attract attention. Indeed, he is currently transitioning his own career to take on a larger management role with the golfer Rory McIlroy. In this episode of Sports Matters, he talks about his journey, the development of the business of sport in Ireland, and the highlights from his career. Sports Matters is sponsored by Whitney Moore.
French economist Gabriel Zucman has led the charge against tax avoidance by multinationals and, more recently, billionaires. On a visit to Dublin, he sits down with Thomas Hubert to discuss Trump's challenge to an economic development model based on attracting taxable profits from other jurisdictions, how to catch tax exiles, and the fine line between academic research and politics.
What did it mean to be a prison officer in the jail housing convicted IRA members during the Troubles? Brian Stack knew that life and he was a committed senior prison officer at Portlaoise prison who paid for his dedication with his life. His son Austin talks to Dion Fanning about his family’s search for justice.
The independent Senator Rónán Mullen has spent decades championing traditional values in an Ireland that has undergone profound social and political change. A vocal advocate for Catholic-informed conservatism, he has challenged prevailing narratives on issues such as secularism, migration, and free speech. In a wide-ranging conversation with Ian Kehoe, he reflects on his political journey, the role of faith in governance, and his belief that mainstream media is increasingly hostile to voices like his.
Gordon D’Arcy and Paul Howard have combined to write Let’s Play Rugby. In this podcast, they talk to Dion Fanning about professionalism, the danger of rugby’s reliance on the schools for talent and the reality versus satire in Ross O’Carroll Kelly.
Conor Murphy’s decision to leave Northern Ireland politics where he was economy minister to run for the Seanad raised eyebrows. Why was the move necessary? Why would a senior politician give up a ministerial position for life in the Seanad? Murphy’s long career in republicanism and his comments concerning the murder of Paul Quinn in 2007 provided further complications. In a wide ranging podcast he discusses all these matters with Dion Fanning.
Podcast description: Who killed Jean McConville? It is impossible to say, Martin Dillon believes, but it is one the darkest secrets of the Troubles, a conflict with many dark secrets. Dillon has made a career of exposing them to the light. He talks to Dion Fanning about his new book, his time as a journalist in the north when his life was in danger as he exposed the world of informants and double agents. He also tells the extraordinary story of bringing John Hume and Gerry Adams together for a debate on the BBC in 1985.
Who was Edna O’Brien? Was she the fearless slayer of convention as depicted by the tributes after she died or was she the frivolous, insubstantial figure long depicted in Ireland? A new documentary reveals a compelling vulnerable genius, whose courage was not a hollow statement but one that was not without fear, loneliness and misery. In this podcast with Dion Fanning, Sinead O’Shea talks about making the documentary.
How do you reinvent your business model to remain relevant and to protect your company for the future?
It is a question that many CEOs are trying to answer. And they are trying to answer it at a time of major change, disruption and transformation - from technological advancements to shifting geopolitical sands to heightened economic uncertainty. In this episode of The Tech Agenda, Amy Ball, Transformation Leader, PwC Ireland, talks to Ian Kehoe about the business of business reinvention. Ball also talks about the results of PwC’s 2025 CEO survey, discusses how businesses can prepare for disruption, and gives her assessment on emerging issues such as climate investment and GenAI. The Tech Agenda podcast series is sponsored by PwC.
We now have full sight of the returns achieved by Cerberus on the first wave of distressed debt it acquired in Ireland following the financial crisis. Thomas Hubert joins Ian Kehoe to discuss the US vulture fund's performance and how it compares between deals with major Irish providers of bad loans, such as Nama and Ulster Bank, and other European countries covered by Cerberus's growing Irish office. A major series of articles to be published this week covers the figures in detail.
