Richie Sadlier and Mr Motivator on how partnerships with entrepreneur Brendan Kavanagh soured

Educational technology entrepreneur Brendan Kavanagh has a knack for persuading current and former sports stars to get involved with his businesses. Kavanagh leads the Olive Group of companies, which has substantial contracts with public education and training boards (ETBs), statutory bodies that manage both primary and post-primary school provision, and also supplies dozens of schools with laptops and tablets. The businessman is in the news this week after it emerged that he resigned as chairman and director of Grinds 360, the country’s biggest online grinds company that he cofounded, following a boardroom dispute. The Wicklow man has succeeded in attracting an array of former sportsmen, from former GAA star player and manager Babs Keating to rugby player Brian O’Driscoll, to become involved as investors, business partners and staff in his companies, including Olive for Education, Olive Media and Grinds 360.READ MOREOne of the sports figures he wooed was former Irish international footballer Richie Sadlier, who is speaking publicly for the first time about his experience out of concern that others have also been drawn into Kavanagh’s businesses and projects.In January 2020, Sadlier received a text from Kavanagh.The message said Kavanagh was launching a mental health project and was also “working with the minister for health [then Simon Harris] in a personal way”.Sadlier, one of RTÉ’s leading soccer pundits, was also presenting a series with Second Captains at the time featuring in-depth interviews with sports stars.Given Sadlier’s high profile, Kavanagh pitched him an idea for a new podcast. It would involve Sadlier, Kavanagh and Harris discussing mental health issues. Sadlier said Kavanagh claimed to be “a mentor” and friend of the Fine Gael minister and Wicklow TD.Brendan Kavanagh (left) with then minister for further and higher education Simon Harris at the launch of the Share (Sexual Health Awareness Relationship Education) online course in July 2021. With the 2020 general election scheduled for February 8th, Sadlier declined, feeling he would be “unavoidably politicising myself”.The conversation turned to a sex-education course that Sadlier, a qualified psychotherapist, had developed with Elaine Byrnes, a researcher at the University of Galway, which they had run in a south Dublin secondary school. Kavanagh proposed scaling it up through his company Olive Media.“He said: ‘Listen, I’m CEO of the leading e-learning company in the country, this is the stuff we do,’” said Sadlier of Kavanagh’s pitch.Telling them that “the sky is the limit” for the project, Kavanagh said all he needed was the content, he told the pair. Sadlier and his partner Byrnes supplied it through their company Cherry Blossom Productions. They agreed that Olive would sort out the technology and production and there would be a 50/50 revenue split.“I was quite impressed by him,” said Sadlier. “He had links with the minister for health, so I assumed that carried some weight. I trusted him.”Sadlier worked with Byrnes to create an online course that could be accessed by schools across the country. Share – Sexual Health Awareness Relationship Education – was launched by Simon Harris, then minister for further and higher education, in July 2021.Harris said at the launch, in a video of the event posted on YouTube, that he was “hugely impressed” with the accessibility of the Share platform for parents, teachers and students. He described the course as “a hugely helpful tool” in the fight against sexual violence.Share was ready to launch in July 2021, before the new school year. The fee for schools was €20 per student, up to a maximum charge of €2,000. Sadlier said Share generated some €60,000 of revenue in the months after its launch.Sadlier first had concerns about the joint-project when Olive was late providing figures or late paying fees. Olive kept a dashboard of financial information showing how many Share licences were bought.However, it was not until November 2021 that he became seriously worried. At that stage, Sadlier had been out of action for three months. Spending 22 hours a day in bed after spinal fusion surgery to treat back pain, the former professional footballer had time on his hands.As he recovered from surgery, he began to hear from schools that had signed up to the platform, but he could not see those sign-ups reflected in Olive’s figures.Richie Sadlier: 'There was a little bit of a mismatch between what I knew was happening and what I was being told was happening, so I started to ask very politely, very clearly, just questions, looking for explanations, and every answer I got was more of a red flag.' Photograph: Cyril Byrne/The Irish Times “There was a little bit of a mismatch between what I knew was happening and what I was being told was happening, so I started to ask very politely, very clearly, just questions, looking for explanations, and every answer I got was more of a red flag,” said Sadlier.As he questioned the data, his access was cut off. He was told he would get monthly figures only. Another red flag for Sadlier was when Olive refused to tell him which schools were clients, with the strict data protection law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), cited as the reason.When he managed to talk to schools involved, many were unhappy.“I started to understand just why there was so much resistance within Olive for me talking directly to teachers,” he said. ‘I do remember how I felt that day when I just read an article which said he had a new venture, and I think [rugby players] Brian O’Driscoll and Caelan Doris [Kilkenny hurler] Walter Walsh, three people who I’d have a lot of time for, were investors’— Richie Sadlier on Brendan Kavanagh“Some schools would say: ‘Listen, we paid them months ago and we still haven’t had access to the course.’ Others would say: ‘We paid for them and then had tech difficulties. They keep telling us they’ll send someone to service and we just haven’t heard from them.’”“I was mortified by this, because I was very much the person that was sent out to speak to the media about how good this was, how reputable and brilliant the company was,” said Sadlier.From Kavanagh being an enthusiastic partner, Sadlier said he soon found the Olive boss would not speak directly with him.There were attempts to arrange a meeting, but it never happened. In one email responding to Sadlier’s questions, Kavanagh accused Sadlier of trying to “bully” his staff by asking questions.“I knew at this point that not only had the working relationship completely broken down, but they weren’t doing what they claimed they would do to a high standard,” said Sadlier.The final straw came when the mother of a teenage client receiving therapy from Sadlier asked him to contact her sister – a teacher who was frustrated that Share was not providing what her school had paid for. [ Charity received more than 170 warnings from regulator about overdue accountsOpens in new window ]“At this point, I knew I needed to get out and the lawyer said: ‘You have grounds to terminate’, and I immediately sent a letter: ‘Agreement terminated’,” said Sadlier.The letter sent by Cherry Blossom Productions, the company owned by Sadlier and Byrnes, sent in April 2022, claimed Kavanagh’s company had breached their contract nine times. Thomas Cullen, then Olive’s chief financial officer, in a responding letter to Cherry Blossom, said he did not accept their complaints, but confirmed termination of the contract “by mutual agreement”.Sadlier said the final payment from Olive arrived without any breakdown of what it was for. The whole experience left a bad taste in his mouth.“For a long time, I was really angry that I had invested so much of my time and work in something that I really wanted to work and I was kicking myself that I partnered up with him and that after all the time and work that was put into it, we were back to square one,” he said.One ETB recently confirmed to Sadlier that it had paid Olive €565.80 in February 2022 for Share, but it could not get the programme to work – and no one from Olive responded to repeated requests for assistance. A refund was requested and despite Sadlier being told by Kavanagh that he would handle it, no refund was ever paid.Sadlier earlier this year launched a new online course aimed at secondary schools called “Let’s Talk SPHE” – referring to social, personal and health education, a mainstay of the curriculum.This project has no link with Olive and Kavanagh.Sadlier is prepared to talk about his bad experience because sports stars he admires have invested in Kavanagh’s businesses.“I do remember how I felt that day when I just read an article which said he had a new venture, and I think [rugby players] Brian O’Driscoll and Caelan Doris and [Kilkenny hurler] Walter Walsh, three people who I’d have a lot of time for, were investors,” he said.Sadlier was not the only content provider to have such a negative experience with Olive. Mr Motivator, the leotard-clad fitness instructor whose live workout sessions and fitness tips on British breakfast TV shows made him a household name from the 1990s, had a similar ordeal.Mr Motivator and the ‘revolutionary’ Jaguar Land Rover dealMr Motivator, or Derrick Evans, partnered with Olive in 2021 to launch an online fitness and wellbeing website after Kavanagh pitched the idea to him.“I should have listened to my inner spirit, really, which always told me if something sounds too good to be true, it normally is, right?” he said. “Because they promised everything; they over-promised and underdelivered.”Derrick Evans aka Mr Motivator promoted a live chat with Brendan Kavanagh on his Facebook page. Rather than build a bespoke site, Evans was unhappy to learn Olive built his Mr Motivator Club on an existing template and he had to operate within those constraints.Soon after the launch, Evans heard complaints from customers who were not having their inquiries answered. People who joined but then cancelled their membership complained that they continued to be charged and had difficulty getting refunds.Even though the JLR deal was terminated in 2023, Olive still has a page on its website claiming to be providing the technology that will ‘revolutionise’ JLR’s employee learning scheme for 30,000 staffWhen Evans promoted a live chat with Kavanagh on his Facebook page, a woman complained in the comments: “Please when you chat to Brendan please ask why his website overcharges for access following IT failures their end, and I’m being charged twice for services I don’t use.”Evans said: “Quite a number of people were having all those kind of problems.” He said Kavanagh told him Olive had a deal to run the staff rewards and training system for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), the giant UK automobile manufacturer, and promised thousands of customers could be recruited for him through that. As part of the rewards and training, staff could claim credits to use for self-improvement classes, ranging from golf to fitness classes to music lessons.In reality, the Olive deal with JLR that was signed in early 2022 with much publicity was terminated in 2023 after golf pros and guitar teachers complained Olive had failed to pay them for months after they gave lessons booked through its system.Even though the JLR deal was terminated in 2023, Olive still has a page on its website claiming to be providing the technology that will “revolutionise” JLR’s employee learning scheme for 30,000 staff.Evans said his deal with Olive involved him receiving a set monthly fee, while Olive kept the rest of the revenue until it covered development costs. In 2022 Olive stopped paying him, he said, and he could not get transparency on how the site was performing. Coupled with rising customer complaints in 2023, he became disillusioned and cut dealings with this Irish company.“There were all these things that they promised with different people like JLR, and none of it was ever materialising,” Evans said. “And then I realised that it was all the Blarney Stone.”Evans estimates he lost between £10,000 (€11,650) and £12,000 (€14,000) through his dealings with Olive, but decided not to pursue any legal action. He has since set up a new Mr Motivator website without Olive.“We just cut our losses because it just got really bad,” he said. “You just could not get anything back from them.”The Simon Harris connectionWhile Kavanagh had pitched his idea directly to Evans, at home he has used his network of connections to attract other investors and partners. One of those key connections is a senior political figure.A number of Olive sources have said Kavanagh, who is lives in Wicklow, often boasted about having a close relationship with Simon Harris, a TD for that constituency, and claimed his companies helped Harris with some of his social media. The relationship had helped Kavanagh with his approach to Sadlier.Brendan Kavanagh posted a picture on LinkedIn of a meeting he had with Tánaiste Simon Harris in Leinster House in May this year. Kavanagh arranged for Harris’s constituency manager John Kelly and other campaign workers to meet one of his video production partners to get advice on targeting and retaining younger voters. A request was made by Kelly at one point to add an Olive worker as an administrator on the Simon Harris Facebook page.One Olive source said Kavanagh privately admitted he does not support Fine Gael but said Harris was “good for business”.The ETBs have been valuable clients for Olive in recent years, with four of them having paid more than a combined €1.5 million to Olive since 2020. By far the most important ETB client for Olive has been Louth & Meath ETB, which paid €1.28 million to the company from 2020 to 2025. There is no suggestion that Harris played any role in helping Olive win those contracts.Harris, now Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, was minister for health from 2016 to 2020 and minister for further and higher education from 2020 to 2024. He was chosen as Fine Gael leader in March 2024 and became taoiseach in April of that year.Kavanagh was among Harris’s Wicklow supporters in Leinster House on the day he was elected taoiseach.Kavanagh shared a letter with colleagues that Harris sent him as taoiseach, dated January 5th, 2025. “I wanted to take a moment to thank you for all the friendship and support over the years,” Harris wrote. “Not only did this make the general election in Wicklow possible, but it allowed our party to enter the Dáil term with a renewed vigour and energy, and for this I am immensely grateful. “Please do keep in touch and do not hesitate to let me know if I can ever be of assistance,” the Fine Gael leader wrote.More recently, Kavanagh posted a photograph on LinkedIn of himself meeting Harris in Leinster House in late May 2026. Kavanagh thanked Harris for his “authentic interest in what’s happening in technology and how Government can support”.At the time, Harris’s spokesman said the meeting was “a visit by some constituents of the Tánaiste’s to Leinster House which was organised by his constituency office”.“The Tánaiste dropped in to greet them and had an informal conversation with them about a number of constituency matters.”The Irish Times sent 10 questions to the Tánaiste’s press advisers on September 11th asking about what assistance Kavanagh had provided him.A spokesman for Harris phoned The Irish Times on Tuesday, September 15th to say that the Tánaiste’s office would not respond on the record to the questions. He asked whether he could speak off the record, meaning his responses could not be quoted. The Irish Times declined and said it only wanted the questions answered on the record so they could be quoted in this story.The Irish Times asked Olive and Brendan Kavanagh a series of detailed questions on September 2nd. On September 29th, a spokesman for the Olive Group complained that they had not had adequate time to consider and respond fully to the questions. “Olive Group and Brendan Kavanagh do not accept a number of the assumptions, characterisations and conclusions reflected in the questions submitted,” the spokesman said.