One More Thing:With the new League of Ireland A Championship set to kick off in June, Sporting Fingal FC is believed to have secured Ballymun-based fruit distributor Keelings as its main sponsor.
Backed by Fingal County Council, one of the biggest local authorities in the State, the fledgling club is understood to have squeezed Keelings for a tasty €250,000 a year. This would make it one of the biggest football sports sponsorships in the country and dwarf many of the deals cut by established teams playing in the Eircom League.
Sporting Fingal, which will be managed by former Ireland international Liam Buckley, is at last giving Fingal representation at the top table of Irish soccer.
The council has ambitious plans to build a stadium and a €10 million state-of-the-art academy near Swords that will be available to all clubs in the area.
Fingal, which has a population of 250,000, is believed to have pitched the sponsorship at most of the large companies in its jurisdiction. Keelings is one of Ireland's biggest fruit distributors, employing about 1,500 staff.
The new A championship will operate as a second tier to the existing Eircom League premier and first divisions. It is part of the FAI's grand plan to reinvigorate the domestic league.
It will include reserve teams from a number of Eircom League sides and four new clubs - Sporting Fingal, Tullamore Town, Galway-based Mervue Utd and Salthill Devon. The highest ranked of these four clubs will earn promotion to the First Division.
With Keelings' sponsorship in the bag, Sporting Fingal will start the season with a strong wind at its back.
