British viewers must ponder over a choice of Gary Lineker or Adrian Chiles (succeeding Des Lynam), Alan Shearer or Andy Townsend, or John Motson and Clive Tyldesley. Meanwhile Irish football fans have a bit more choice for their viewing pleasure. A favourite is to stay local and hear the ramblings of the three old coots who have been romantically reunited, before making a quick dash to channel 141/142 to hear the familiar voice of Motty or Jonathan Pearce. There’s also the infuriating but unmissable lesser games when Peter Collins, Kenny Cunningham and team appear to provide their opinions, usually for the early kick-off, but it’s nowhere near the standard of Eamon Dunphy, Johnny Giles or the third musketeer, Liam Brady.

The BBC boast a fresh line-up that includes a mix of old names, some familiar but new faces to the hotseat and a touch of young, international flavour. The most familiar channel on television has however been severely weakened with the loss of Ray Stubbs to newcomers ESPN, while Marcel Desailly, who provided an insightful view from the touchline at Euro 2008, has switched alliegances to rivals ITV for an undisclosed fee. However they do include a strong list of managers, namely Gordon Strachen, Roy Hodgson, Jurgen Klinsmann and Harry Redknapp. Emmanuel Adebayor – not to mention Clarence Seedorf – could be the secret weapon here, the players are the youngest out of all line-ups and will have an interesting insight into the football culture of Africa and their fellow professionals.

The RTE have also revamped their set up, with the shock signing of Dietmar Hamann, former Liverpool and German international, and Ossie Ardiles who is the only one on the team with previous World Cup experience with his 1978 Argentina medal. Kenny Cunningham has been dropped from the early games to be replaced by youngster Richard Sadlier, who has been slowly rising through the ranks on Premier Soccer Saturday. I will admit, I will miss Kenny’s concentration-grabbing eyebrows. Graeme Souness, on loan from Sky, will be making another appearance at this World Cup after successful stints at Euro 2008, World Cup 2006 as well as some Champions League appearances.

The return of Liam Brady to the line-up is one which has been met with great favour. Arguably one of the best players never to play in a World Cup, Brady has been working with Giovani Trapattoni’s Ireland team as well as spending time with the Arsenal Youth Academy. A huge positive to Ireland’s absence in South Africa. During his spell away, Brady was replaced by the misguided and deluded former Liverpool legend Ronnie Whelan who was a foil for Gilesy and Dunph, and he surprisingly keeps his place in the team. It is unknown whether or not RTE will switch to a foursome during the big games, or to put Whelan on the second string.

ITV could appear as dark horses for British and Irish viewers this summer. Despite stepping down in presenter quality with Adrian Chiles, their commentary and punditry team is strong. The acquisition of Chiles reportedly set them back £1.5million, surely a signing that will follow in flop standards of Alberto Aquilani. Kevin Keegan has switched from ESPN for the month, while Lucas Radebe, Edgar Davids and Manchester City‘s Patrick Vieira are amongst the fresh faces to add to old Robbie Earle, Gareth Southgate and Jim Beglin. A huge signing for them is Jon Champion, previously of Setanta and ESPN, who will no doubt be dropping his Countdown vocab on the viewers. Their inclusion of Francois Pienaar, from a different sporting code, is bizarre. ITV will only be screening 32 live games, so it’s an expensive squad with few fixtures to play. Despite the massive outlay, they don’t have heavyweights in the calibre of RTE or the Beeb.

The BBC will be airing many of the group stage games and will have exclusive rights to the Last 16 and quarter-finals, while RTE will have every single game.

The line-ups:

BBC: Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen, Alan Shearer, Lee Dixon, Gordon Strachen, Jurgen Klinsmann, Clarence Seedorf, Emmanuel Adebayor, Harry Redknapp, Roy Hodgson, Mark Lawrenson. On the bench: Mick McCarthy, Martin Keown, Mark Bright, Johnathan Pearce.

RTE: Bill O’ Herlihy, Eamon Dunphy, John Giles, Liam Brady, Graeme Souness, Ronnie Whelan, Dietmar Hamann, Ossie Ardiles, Denis Irwin, George Hamilton. On the bench: Richard Sadlier, Matt Holland, Peter Collins, Kevin Kilbane, Ray Houghton, Trevor Stephen.

ITV: Adrian Chiles, Matt Smith, Marcel Desailly, Patrick Vieira, Lucas Radebe, Edgar Davids, Gareth Southgate, Kevin Keegan, Andy Townsend, Robbie Earle, Jim Beglin. On the bench: Craig Burley, Francois Pienaar, Clive Tyldesley, Petery Drury, Jon Champion.

Who to watch for analysis and coverage: A fresh, but experienced and always entertaining line-up.

For commentary: ITV might have the younger, intelligent commentators in Tylsedely and Champion, but choose BBC if you’re a Motty and Match of the Day fan.

For the rest: BBC will have the best in online and interactive coverage (via the red button, remember).

This Saturday evening could well be of the red letter variety for anyone who has ever sat beer in hand on their sofa, or pulled up a chair in a pub, with the express intention of watching a football match. No, I’m not talking about the immovable object meets the immovable object competition set to grace Croke Park. I am instead referring to the dead rubber fixture between England and Ukraine in Dnipro whose unique broadcast to the masses could change the face of sports broadcasting forever.

For the first time ever, an England qualifier will be shown exclusively on the internet, the rights bought up by Swiss based company Kentaro. That’s a name you might want to note down. Because if they get one million subscribers for the clash, as they are very likely to do, you and your mates could find yourselves watching the 2014 World Cup qualifiers hunched over a PC. No doubt wondering if the pixilated bald-looking blob in the top right corner of the screen is actually Stephen Ireland in a green jersey.

But why in the name of all things sacred is this game not on BBC, ITV, Sky or even Five? Well first of all, it was supposed to be on Setanta. You may’ve heard a whisper about them going bust leaving Kentaro, the company hired by the Ukranian FA to sell the rights of the game, with the rather sticky job of trying to resell a by now utterly inconsequential game of ball. That’s because those dastardly English have qualified for South Africa with two games to spare.

The maths of the sale is intriguing. Setanta, before it all went horribly Phil Brown for them, had agreed to pay £5m to Kentaro for the right to broadcast – admittedly before the game was rendered unimportant. With that deal dead, the BBC are believed to have gallantly offered between £1m and £2m for the honour of showing the game. ITV, who are a bit broke, offered a slot in the X-Factor final, which is in fairness, potentially worth a £1m  record deal and a Christmas No.1. Kentaro rejected all advances. They must’ve known those creepy, high-haired Irish twins have that X-Factor in the bag.

Undeterred, Kentaro cosied up to internet sports broadcasters Perform, and together they reckon they can sell one million online subscriptions for the game for a minimum of £4.99. (The price raises to £7.99 Thursday and £11.99 for the Johnny Come Lately’s who want to come aboard on Saturday.) The sums here are not exactly difficult, sell all their subs and the minimum they take is £5m.

One million subscribers for a game of no consequence, as you can imagine, is not the easiest sell. But it’s at this point that Kentaro/Perform pulled a real masterstroke. They signed affiliate deals with 8 of the highest selling newspapers in the UK to market the match on their websites in a revenue-share basis.

This was exceptionally clever on two fronts. Firstly, and most obviously, shifting those million subscriptions suddenly looks a lot more doable. Secondly, they sidestep all that nasty negative publicity they were bound to attract had they merely denied soccer fans the opportunity to watch the game on either terrestrial or satellite TV. One of the papers signed up, The Sun, hardly renowned for its measured approach, has hailed the Kentaro deal as a ‘landmark in the digital age.’  It seems every one’s a winner baby and that’s the truth.

Except of course, the football fan. Because watching a game on your television with a can of beer, or if you prefer, with your mates down the local is a divine God-given right of every man, woman, child or beast. Those horrid folk at Kentaro have ensured that English football fans who want to watch the game will be forced to do so huddled around laptops or worse, in cinemas! Odeon have done a deal to ensure the game will be screened in 11 of their venues across the UK. Admittedly, the thought of English lager-swilling footy fans piling into the multiplexes for Sven Goran Eriksson’s measured opinions with a side of popcorn does raise a grin, but if it was us…. Joe Duffy would have his lug burned off.

And yet we Irish football fans have been here before. And there was no internet white knight to save us poor unfortunates. In 1999 Ireland drew Turkey in a two legged play off for Euro 2000 qualification. The first leg was in Dublin – we drew 1-1, you might remember Lee Carsley coming on and giving away a penalty after about 30 seconds on the park. Painful.

The return leg was in Bursa but RTE and the Turkish rights holders were unable to come to agreement on the coverage of the game. Most football fans, and probably RTE too, decided that even though there was no mention of it in the RTE Guide, Billo, Johnny and Eamonn would be there to console us once the whole thing went tits up in Turkey. The Turks would fold, the price would come down and we’d all get to watch the misery unfold right before our eyes.

The day before the game was the first real signal that the whole thing had gone whack. The Taoiseach of the time, some lad called Bertie Ahern, a football fan by all accounts, decided he should give the Turkish PM a bell to sort out impasse. It didn’t work. The next day, the day of the game, the Irish public awoke to the harsh reality that the game really was not going to be on TV. With the internet still in its infancy and broadband still Michael Guiney’s bestselling belt and nothing else, the trusty wireless was the only option for game coverage.

All was not lost however, on the Gerry Ryan show on 2FM that very day, word got out that Turkish TV channel Star TV were showing the game. You couldn’t pick it up with your satellite dish as it was. But if you could scramble on to your roof and face it for Turkey, you might just pick up Star TV. You couldn’t actually make it up. A Sky engineer came on the Ryan show to explain how you might go about repositioning your dish to pick up the Turkish Gilesy and Dunph. Many tried, and a very, very small number managed to pick up grainy images of a 37-year-old Tony Cascarino using his elbows to soften up the windy Turks. The drabbest game of football ever (so we’re told) finished 0-0, we failed to qualify, those kindly Turkish folk had done us a favour.

Back to the future and could this dead rubber in Ukraine really change the way we watch our footy? The answer is probably, ‘yes’. In media circles, TV on the internet is all the buzz. Sure it’s already happening with Youtube and its ilk. RTE have even cottoned on to this with their fancy new player. It’s a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. But don’t panic just yet, RTE have the TV rights to broadcast the Euro 2012 qualifiers. Thereafter is up for grabs.

For English football fans, Kentaro and Perform the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, set to be served at 17.15GMT this Saturday evening. The internet broadcasters have guaranteed a quality service with Sven amongst their crack analysis team. They’ve capped their subscribers at a million to ensure the bandwidth isn’t overloaded and the stream is a high quality for all viewers. Even at that, this is huge test for Britain’s broadband infrastructure. It survived the extra strain the BBC iPlayer placed upon it but one million concurrent streams of live football will surely test its mettle. The novelty factor will ensure that Kentaro and Perform will get the subscribers they need but will football fans be happy to watch Sven’s baldy pate on their computers and in cinemas for future games of consequence? We’ll know more Sunday morning.

Football punditry is a strange beast, usually comprised of ex-professionals offering their ‘expert’ opinions in a comfy-looking studio while a smiling host offers up the key talking points for discussion. Oftentimes it resembles a debate you’d see in a pub, and this is never truer than in the case of the RTE panel.

I’d like to think we were all a little upset when on a no doubt overcast May evening; RTE news informed us that Ryan Tubridy had succeeded Pat Kenny as the host of the Late Late Show. Nothing personal against Mr Tubridy, but his appointment spelled the end for the chances of one Bill O’Herlihy, crushing the hopes of a nation in turn.

Sure,  O’Herlihy was never actually in the running for the big job, despite Facebook campaigns to the contrary, however his appointment would have paved the way for unmissable Friday night television.

The host of live football on RTE for many years now, the greatest trick Bill ever pulled was to convince some of his audience that he’s a doddery old fool, one step behind the action, not quite cut out for the job at hand. Rest assured, Bill is no Jimmy Magee and subtly orchestrates the chaos that unfurls in the studio, lobbing verbal hand grenades to his panel whilst sitting back with a cheeky grin, admiring his handiwork.

It’s a curious thing, but typically the worse a game is, the more entertaining the post-match aftermath will be. RTE’s panel come close to rivalling the judges on The X Factor for vitriol and negativity. Johnny Giles seems to resent life itself while Eamonn Dunphy has made aggression and contradiction his gimmick. The sheer amount of videos on YouTube featuring the RTE panel is a testament to its popularity and entertainment value. Outspoken, abrasive and unpredictable, it shines a harsh light on rival broadcasters.

Can you imagine a blazing row breaking out on BBC’s Match Of The Day between Alan Shearer and Mark Lawrenson? Or on ITV between Andy Townsend and Steve McManaman? I’m not suggesting that football punditry requires altercations in order to be interesting, but the English analysis often seems to lack passion, perhaps because the on-air talent are afraid of upsetting players and losing out on interviews? Whatever the reason, the coverage is frequently anaemic and devoid of the fire that the game itself provokes.

The difference between the Irish and the English analysis can be summed up, strangely enough, by a Scotsman; Graeme Souness. Souness splits his time between doing punditry for both RTE and Sky, and while he can sometimes resemble Giles and Dunphy’s whipping boy, when he appears on Sky he brings with him a confidence that perhaps leads him to forget his place, as his outspoken views have often left the other guests frozen, unsure of what to say. Such is the neutered environment, it’s difficult to imagine the likes of Eamonn Dunphy unleashed on the Sky cameras.

Speaking of Sky Sports, we get Richard Keys in the O’Herlihy role, throwing out probing questions such as “Should they make the goals smaller?”, minus the knowing irony. Resident pundit and former top, top player Jamie Redknapp sits awkwardly in his unfathomably tight trousers dying for his turn to speak, so he can wow us with such gems as “The ball literally exploded off his foot”.

Redknapp is the ultimate example of an ex-professional who really has no clue about the game that made his living. Rather than offering any kind of intellectual insight, Redknapp comes across more like a walking, talking advert for Topman, stating the obvious at every turn.

The sad fact is that these shows and newspapers are riddled with this, from Paul Merson’s excitable groaning on Soccer Saturday to Ian Wright’s column in The Sun, the viewer is ‘treated’ to gormless insights that would insult the intelligence of a five-year-old.

Sky’s saving grace is its impressive production values, but no amount of slick camerawork and flashy graphics can disguise the bland atmosphere served up. Andy Gray’s Last Word programme sees him hover over a monitor, drawing lines underneath players and showing us the action in super-slow motion replete with constant freeze frame. It’s quite similar to Johnny Giles, only without the familiar combination of the technology failing and Giles’ irritation.

Sky’s hype machine extends to its strangely addictive 24 hours a day dedicated news channel, which can even make Scottish football seem mildly intriguing. Incidentally, I should probably find it concerning that I have watched Sky Sports News so much that I can not only identify all the presenters by name without help, I even have my favourites; namely Jim White for his relentless enthusiasm about absolutely everything and Millie Clode for well, obvious reasons.

Ultimately though it all comes down to entertainment value, and despite lacking the glossy camera angles, the computer-generated imagery and the big name guests, RTE have remembered that football is a game that stirs the emotions, causes grown men to scream at their television and jump up and down like idiots when the ball ripples the back of the net. RTE have embraced this and it’s reflected in its coverage. When the World Cup rolls around next summer, I know what channel I’ll be watching, whether Ireland makes it there or not.

But we will make it, right?