Nicky Byrne

Nicholas Bernard James Adam Byrne, Jr. (born 9 October 1978) is an Irish singer-songwriter, radio and TV presenter, dancer, and former semi-professional footballer, best known for being a member of Irish music band Westlife; he was the band's oldest member. Before his music career, he played professional football, representing Republic of Ireland at several junior levels. Since then he has had a successful TV presenting career. His wife Georgina is the daughter of former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and they have twin sons called Rocco Bertie Byrne and Jay Nicky Byrne and a daughter called Gia. On 7 September 2012, it was announced that Byrne would be a contestant for the tenth series of Strictly Come Dancing. He was the ninth contestant to be eliminated. He was ranked number two on Ireland's Sexiest Man of 2014. He will represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 in Stockholm with the song, "Sunlight" after RTÉ had internally chosen him.

Career

Football

Byrne was a footballer and played for Home Farm and St. Kevins Boys in North Dublin. He became a professional player, and joined Leeds United as a goalkeeper in 1995, and was a squad member of the FA Youth Cup winning team of 1997. He played for Leeds for two years, leaving when his contract expired in June 1997. He played in a reserve game for Scarborough F.C. and in a trial game with Cambridge United before returning to join Dublin club Shelbourne. He then signed for Cobh Ramblers playing 15 games, then St. Francis F.C., all in Ireland's League of Ireland.

Seltaeb

Seltaeb was a company set up in 1963, by Nicky Byrne (né Douglas Anthony Nicholas Byrne) to exclusively look after merchandising interests on behalf of Brian Epstein, who managed NEMS Enterprises and The Beatles: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.

Directly prior to The Beatles' first American visit, Brian Epstein wanted someone to manage the escalating volume of merchandising requests that NEMS found itself unable to cope with, and asked his lawyer, David Jacobs, to oversee this task. Jacobs knew Nicky Byrne and asked him if he would be interested in taking over the merchandising subdivision from NEMS altogether, paying NEMS a commission. Byrne accepted the offer subject to a 90% rate, leaving only 10% for the Beatles and NEMS combined. Completely unaware of the potential market that existed, particularly in America, Epstein agreed to the deal, and subsequently lost The Beatles an estimated $100,000,000 in possible income.

In December 1963 Byrne took over the control of Stramsact in the UK, and then set up Seltaeb (Beatles spelt backwards) in the USA. Epstein was able to renegotiate a more favourable commission of 49% in August 1964, but then became embroiled in a three-year court battle with Byrne regarding payment of monies due, during which time potential sponsors lost interest. In August 1967 Epstein died, from what was ruled an accidental overdose of a prescribed drug. Jacobs was found hanged in his garage on 15 December 1968. Byrne later retired to the Bahamas.