Former owner 'surprised' over Limerick FC licence

BARELY TWO years after he announced at Punch’s hotel in Limerick that the challenge of turning the city’s League of Ireland football club around “excited” him, New Jersey lawyer Jack McCarthy has expressed his “total surprise” at discovering this week that Limerick FC’s FAI licence for the coming season has been granted to a company other than the one he has invested €280,000 in, and still owns the majority of, without him being told.

The case appears to raise new questions about the club licensing system as the process to initiate a liquidation of the company McCarthy was involved with appears to have been commenced and its only significant asset, the club and its licence, taken over by another company without, it seems, McCarthy knowing.

McCarthy, who became involved after asking FAI chief executive John Delaney to recommend good investment opportunities in the game here, is considering how to react to a move which he says was taken entirely without his knowledge. He acknowledges that the club, which was formally owned by a company called Limerick Thirty Seven FC Ltd (LTSFC), had ongoing financial problems, that local businessman Pat O’Sullivan had taken over the funding of it and that liquidation had been “an option” they had discussed last summer but maintains that no formal decisions were ever made by the company or its members, which include a number of other much smaller shareholders. Late last year, the pair exchanged correspondence through their legal representatives about a buyout of McCarthy’s investment which, in accordance with FAI regulations, had been made in the form of equity.

A spokesman for the club said last night that McCarthy had indicated his agreement to the company being liquidated in one of these letters but the American denies this, insisting that he had merely indicated that O’Sullivan might have to take that course of action if agreement regarding a purchase price for his shares could not be reached. “It’s one thing to say that we might have to liquidate when two guys are talking about figures,” he said. “It’s another to say to one of the guys afterwards that you’ve just gone ahead and done it. I didn’t see that I was authorising that action.”

LTSFC had held the licence for League of Ireland football in the city during McCarthy’s time in charge with the American taking over and paying off almost €200,000 in debt before providing close to €100,000 more in order to keep the club afloat.

O’Sullivan became heavily involved during the course of last summer when McCarthy stated publicly that he could no longer afford to subsidise the club himself. McCarthy subsequently resigned as a director but the pair had an agreement that their respective shares in the company would continue to be linked to the amount of money they put in. In the most recent documents registered with the Companies Office, the holdings are listed as 63.18 per cent and 29.95 per cent respectively. But Limerick’s licence application was subsequently made by a different company, Munster Football Club Ltd.

A spokesman for the club said that this was done because nobody would agree to become a second director of LTSFC and this threatened to fatally undermine any licence application it made. O’Sullivan and a member of his family are the only registered directors of the new company.

The FAI says that the licence was granted because the new company had guaranteed all of the debts of the previous company and a spokesman for the club said last night that all trade creditors will be paid by the new company. Both say that company law was adhered to.

“I’m disappointed that there wasn’t more transparency and communication,” said McCarthy last night.

“I put a lot of my heart and a lot of my money into the club and I did hope that there might be some future involvement but I feel now like eaten bread is soon forgotten.”