Speaking to the BBC’s GAA Social podcast, the Banner star outlined how he was unhappy that his image was used by the pay-per-view streaming service given that it’s a venture he “personally didn’t agree with”.
GAAGO is a partnership between RTÉ and the GAA which has generated much criticism, given that it puts championship games behind a paywall.
“I’m working with the GPA at the moment on this – name, image, likeness has been mentioned,” O’Donnell told Thomas Niblock.
“It really is having a bit more control over your image. My understanding is I don’t.
“I’ll give you an example. GAAGO obviously last year, not a particularly popular initiative, and one that I personally didn’t agree with.
“I didn’t think it should have been selling [games]. I think they should just be swallowing the cost of promoting the game and paying to televise these games. I don’t think that’s something [major] out of their budget.
“The bottom line is, I don’t agree with it and then I see on the GAAGO website all year that they’re selling the season pass with myself and three other players – just right above the part where it says buy for X amount of euro.
“To anyone you could think that we’re endorsing that, or have given our explicit consent that we would be put up there. That’s just not the case. We weren’t even asked.”
“I don’t want to be endorsing GAAGO because I don’t agree with it. So really, I just want them to ask me, ‘Can we put your image up there?’ ‘No.’ ‘Okay. next person.’
“I mean, it’s not a huge deal, but you feel like you should have some control over your image and you just want to be able to say, ‘Yes, I am happy to do that. No, I am not happy to do that’.
“It feels like you, in some ways, are being exploited as an asset rather than being thought of as like, OK, you are a player that has just had their image attached to something they are not comfortable with.
“It feels like there needs to be some agreement and it’s probably a conversation we need to have with the GAA.
“To be fair to them, they are not here to give their perspective either. I don’t want to stamp over that and interpret what they would say.
“It is just to have a conversation with them and be like okay, how can we come to an agreement.”
