FAI seeks new investors as cost of Eircom Park rises to £130m

The Football Association of Ireland last night nominated a four-member negotiating team to open talks with potential investors after it was conceded to a board of management meeting that the cost of completing Eircom Park would be some £50 million higher than envisaged.

Those appointed include the association's chief executive, Mr Bernard O'Byrne, and its treasurer, Mr Brendan Menton, who have had different views on the project's viability.

After yesterday's meeting at Citywest Hotel, Saggart, Co Dublin, they finally appeared to agree on the key figures involved in the scheme. Building the stadium will cost £109 million, instead of the original estimate of £65 million; the cost of the project will be £130 million, instead of £81 million; and the level of debt will be £56 million instead of no debt, as had been anticipated by Mr O'Byrne's "fully-funded" claim.

Even after members of the board, effectively its board of directors, had received copies of the scheme's third business plan there were still important differences of emphasis between the two men's version of the revised situation.

"The fact is that the stadium is fully funded," said Mr O'Byrne, through a combination of "sponsorship and bank borrowings". The level of debt, he said, was "eminently manageable".

However, Mr Menton suggested that yesterday's meeting represented a "sea change". He claimed the FAI would no longer be in charge of the project and that all the options had to be looked at, a reference to the possibility of new talks with the Government.

Delegates were told that, with some conditions, International Marketing Group, the company that has been selling sponsorship, corporate boxes and premium seats for the stadium, would advance the association the £1.5 million required to get it through the forthcoming planning appeal and to complete the designs of the stadium.

The vote to decide on whether to scrap the scheme was deferred at least until February 5th to allow the negotiating team to report back.

Their first port of call will be Davy Hickey Properties, which has offered to become involved in funding.