Michael O'Rourke's passion for football might have stayed on the pitch, had it not been for the 1990 World Cup. O'Rourke and his friend Leonard Ryan were young Irish ex-pats living in London when Italia '90 kicked off. The last round of Group F fixtures in the pool stage was on June 21. England were to play Egypt and the Republic of Ireland faced Holland.

All the preceding games had been drawn, so the final round of matches would decide who qualified for the next phase of the competition. The BBC would show the England match, but the broadcaster had no plans to show the Irish match.

Messrs O'Rourke and Ryan called Fifa, football's world governing body, and then the BBC and got them to pass on the rights to the Irish game. The pair hired the Top Hat pub in Ealing, West London, and of 1,000 Ireland fans paid £10 each for entry. Mr O'Rourke and Mr Ryan lost money on the event, but the turnout demonstrated that there was a passion for Irish sports among the London expat community and an idea was born.

Setanta Sports was established to beam satellite coverage of Gaelic football and hurling to Irish expats in 1,500 pubs across England. The broadcaster has rolled out its model of selling sports to expats in the United States, Canada and Australia and has reversed it by importing English football to Ireland.

In 2004, Setanta made its first move to acquire British football rights for broadcast in the UK. It paid £35 million for rights to the Scottish Premier League and followed this with the £392million acquisition of rights to some English Premiership matches.

Mr O'Rourke is said to continue his passion for football on the pitch at the grounds of University College, Dublin. A Chelsea fan, Mr O'Rourke is married to the daughter of a former Ireland rugby international. Mr Ryan also lives in Dublin and, having already produced a number of documentaries, is said to want to start directing films.