Football pundit Eamon Dunphy corrected his off-camera demeanor on live broadcast after caught swearing twice during a discussion about the performance of Brazil's national team at this year's World Cup on broadcaster RTE. Dunphy's swearing was apparently a response to the question posed by presenter Bill O'Herlihy on the level of expectation of the host nation's team, and had referred back to the controversial penalty goal made by Neymar against Croatia in last week's opener, the Guardian said.
After muttering the words, "the pitch is a fucking bog," he continued, "When Neymar was shaping up to take that penalty, I thought he was f*****g dreading it." Fellow panelist and former Germany midfielder Dietmar Hamann was at that time playing with his mobile phone during Dunphy's comments, backing up claims that the Irish media personality was not aware that he was on-air around that time, the British paper said.
However, O'Herlihy, who has started covering the World Cup for RTE in 1978 and will be retiring after this week's tournament, reacted audibly to Dunphy's comments, gasping, and told his colleague that they were actually live on air. O'Herlihy tried to regain his composure and addressed to the camera, saying, "I apologize for that, obviously that was an inexactitude."
O'Herlihy also tried to apologize for the on-air gaffe after an ad break and said, "Now before the game you might have heard an unfortunate word so I'll hand you over to Eamon."
Dunphy immediately followed with an apology, saying, "I'd just like to apologize to anybody. I thought we were on an ad break and I used a four-letter word. I'm very, very sorry for the offence I'm sure I caused some people. It won't happen again."
Dunphy's immediate apology was important considering that RTE is the national public service broadcaster of the country. While RTE has yet to comment about Dunphy's latest remarks, the broadcaster might have been confident about the duo's professionalism in handling the matter.
