FAI plans on verge of collapse

There were emphatic denials from the man who has championed the scheme throughout the course of its 18-month public history, but critics of Eircom Park, the FAI's proposed state-of-the-art stadium at Citywest in Dublin, were last night claiming victory in the battle to have the project dropped.

They insist that the decision taken, on the advice of the association's officers, by a meeting of its board of management in Merrion Square yesterday to maintain the £3 million cap on spending on the project has effectively left the entire scheme "dead in the water", as that sum has already been expended.

A proposal to allow the scheme to proceed to planning with South Dublin County Council was endorsed by 16 votes to two, but this was described as little more than "a face saving measure" by an organisation which has spent more than 60 per cent of its cash reserves on the scheme since announcing it in January of last year.

"Today was a holding decision," said the association's honorary treasurer, Brendan Menton. "The decision was not to kill it. Once there is not going to be any further cost to the association, and as long as it does not endanger the association's financial stability, then we have said that we are happy to let it proceed."

With the work already completed on obtaining planning permission from South Dublin County Council and a decision expected in September, the decision should have little effect on that part of the process.

But if, as expected, the decision of the council is then appealed to An Bord Pleannala, then there is unlikely to be sufficient funds available to fight that appeal. In that event, the project will almost certainly fall by the wayside.

FAI chief executive Bernard O'Byrne maintained last night that this was an unreasonable interpretation of the day's events, remarking: "All I can say is that the vote to allow us to go ahead was 16 to two, and on the basis of that I'm still looking forward to proceeding as planned with Eircom Park."

When it was put to him that several members of the board had expressed the opinion that the decision to proceed was aimed solely at securing a return of the £600,00 deposit paid on the 50-acre site at Citywest by allowing the planning process to be exhausted, as the contract stipulates, he said: "If people are saying that they are being ridiculous. I think it's very unfair to be putting that about."

That was clearly the belief of a number of delegates who attended the meeting, however, and no one who could be contacted by The Irish Times last night other than O'Byrne felt any significant further funding would be provided between now and the conclusion of the planning process.

John Delaney of Waterford United said: "Because the £3 million is capped and the VAT is included (a £380,000 rebate on the work done so far had been expected, but the FAI's financial advisers no longer feel that the association with get the money), and given that the Air Corps objections are so strong that it seems certain we will not get planning permission, it looks to be dead in the water."

Others who attended the meeting echoed the sentiment (one even used the phrase), and several of those who have long been questioning the wisdom of the event described the decision to allow the application for planning permission to continue as "no more than a face saving exercise".

During the meeting, a proposal to allow the association to open talks with the Government about the possibility of falling back on sharing the 80,000 seat Stadium Ireland at Abbotstown was defeated by nine votes to eight. Afterwards Byrne said that in view of this "the eight of us will be considering our position".

Another delegate expressed his frustration at the outcome of that vote, remarking: "I'm terribly disappointed, because there is no way that if we go to the Government after this has definitely fallen apart that we will get anything like the deal we would have been offered now. I just can't see the sense of delaying talks any longer."

Also at the meeting, O'Byrne was obliged to admit that a letter from the association's auditors, Deloitte and Touche, had not been made available to Brendan Menton as it should have been, and undertakings were given to the treasurer that he would in future have immediate access to any developments which affect the finances of the organisation. In the letter in question, the auditors had expressed the opinion that the anticipated £380,000 VAT refund which supporters of the Eircom Park project had been continuing to count as being available to them was unlikely to be forthcoming from the Revenue Commissioners.

If that opinion was correct, then just about all of the £3 million allocated to get the stadium to the construction stage was gone, and in the circumstances none of the association's officers who met prior to yesterday afternoon's board of management meeting seems to have been willing to have put the case for digging any deeper into the association's already heavily depleted coffers.