Hailing from a illustrious career in sports journalism, Niall Sloane has been at the forefront of British Sport broadcasting for almost 30 years. Working for the BBC for several decades, he now heads up ITV’s sports programming.
A passion for football began at an early age – Niall grew up in Northern Ireland and played for his local team Portadown where he was voted Young Footballer of the Year. Moving to England, he undertook a short stint with Sheffield Wednesday before deciding that the game of professional football wasn’t for him. Niall went to study law at Sheffield University and trained as a journalist with the Herts Advertiser where he began his exciting career.
Joining the BBC in 1982, Niall spent 26 years in the BBC’s sports department starting as an Assistant Producer. He spent six years in this role before becoming an Assistant Editor for Sportsnight and Match of the Day, being promoted to Editor of the iconic football show in 1995.
In 2000 he went on to take charge as Head of Football and Motor Racing where he remained until his resignation in 2009. During his brilliant sports career at the BBC, Niall Sloane piloted the BBC through three World Cups and four European Championships, to name just a few of the important events. He was also largely responsible for the success of the BBC’s live football coverage led by Gary Lineker and Alan Hansen between 2000 and 2008.
Just a month after leaving the BBC he was snapped up by ITV as Director of Sport where he has been instrumental in overseeing the channel’s coverage of events including the FA Cup, England internationals, FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Champions League. ITV has shown every World Cup live since 1966 and earlier this year signed a deal making it the home of all England’s competitive internationals.
It would be hard to find someone to beat Sloane on his knowledge and experience in sports journalism and he is ideally placed as a Guest Lecturer at UCFB.
