The 42FM

On this week’s show, Gavin and Sinéad explore the controversy around the Premier League’s Rainbow Laces campaign, a long-running visibility and inclusivity campaign in support of the LGBTQ+ community which two Premier League captains and the Manchester United team chose not to support fully last week.Is the campaign doing more harm than good? Why is the men’s football so hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, where the women’s game is much more inclusive? Is it unfair to focus on individual footballers, when the sport as a whole does not stand up for the values it claims to hold? Is this story indicative of a wider retreat and regression on LGTBQ+ issues? And, ultimately, can sport really be the inclusive force for progressive values we sometimes like to think it can be?Get in touch - sinead@thejournal.ie and gavincooney@the42.ie

Is Gerry Hutch an exponent of sportswashing? Are Sinn Fein the FAI of politics, to Fianna Fáil’s GAA? And why do all count centres look like Ireland circa 1992?Gav, a “humble sports correspondent”, puts these and other questions to Sinead, who had led The Journal’s coverage of GE24, and must therefore be in a good place to offer some general election player ratings for the party leaders, and a lot more insight besides to a man who has noted an increased sportification of how politics is covered in the media.

On Friday, a jury found that Conor McGregor sexually assaulted Nikita Hand in a Dublin hotel in 2018.Gavin and Sinéad discuss the case on today’s show, and some of the reasons why the jury may have come to their decision. They also discuss the likelihood of McGregor being granted an appeal, and salute the astonishing strength and bravery of Nikita Hand. They also chart McGregor’s rise and fall: why did he become so popular in Ireland in the first place? And when did that popularity first begin to wane?Plus, why did McGregor gravitate to politics, and does this case truly end the possibility of him running for president?Get in touch - email sinead@thejournal.ie and gavincooney@the42.ie

Gavin and Sinead discuss what happens when a totemic leader reaches the end.Should they be kept close to the team, or even be given a bespoke role like Johnny Sexton? Or is a clean break as in the case of Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp or Bill Shankly preferable?Could Sexton be inhibiting the next wave of Irish out-halves, in the same manner that Alex Ferguson’s lingering presence at Old Trafford weighed heavily on successive managers?Or is it totally different for a player, and would Ireland be mad not to keep Sexon’s rugby brain in house?The pair debate the merits and otherwise of a dominant, era-defining character having a say in the next era. And they wonder what a young Sexton would say if faced with a similar set of circumstances when it was time for him to make the Ireland 10 jersey his own.

Was Katie Taylor the just winner of last night’s fight for the ages with Amanda Serrano?Was the majesty of Taylor-Serrano II diminished by its staging as part of a farcical event featuring Jake Paul and Mike Tyson?Was the fight so good as to deem such concerns irrelevant?Might Netflix now seek to stage Taylor-Serrano III as a headlining event, minus the novelty sideshow involving a YouTube personality and boxer who hit his peak 38 years ago?These questions and more are answered by Gavan Casey, our man in Dallas, who caught up with Gavin Cooney and Sinead O’Carroll this afternoon.

Why are Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano fighting on the undercard of the ‘freakshow’ that is Mike Tyson versus Jake Paul?Gavin Cooney and Sinead O’Carroll are joined from Dallas by Gavan Casey, and the trio discuss the rise of novelty ‘boxing’ events.They differ on whether Taylor is compromising her legacy by taking her place on such a card. Should the Bray fighter have turned her back on this spectacle, or would she be mad to have turned down the Netflix riches; a purse that dwarfs anything she has earned before in her stellar career?Hot Pepper by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comCreative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US