Too true Rocko, too true.
Tell me this. If Cork go bust, will an extra team stay in the Premier Division or will an extra team be promoted from the First Division? Or could www.thefreekick.com enter a team to next yearâs competition?
Article on Corkâs plight in the Guardian today
Fans unite as Cork pay the price for daring to dream
With players having taken a 70% pay cut and receivers poised to strip the club bare, Cork are in trouble - again
Barry OâDonovan
August 28, 2008 11:04 AM
The chanting hummed around Turnerâs Cross long after the final whistle last Friday night. The banners unfurled at the beginning of the match-cum-demonstration still fluttered defiantly as the Shed hopped to the same words over and over. The sound was that of 3,795 fans cottoning on, after a week of asking for help, that they were in this alone.
âCork City Football Club is in the wrong hands,â they boomed. Itâs not the catchiest terrace ditty, yet itâs pretty much to the point. The not-beating-around-the-bush theme was yet more evident in the banners. âArkaga - rot in hell,â read one particularly blunt message. Arkaga happen to be those aforementioned wrong hands that have pushed the club into examinership.
From the beginning, Arkaga - a private equity investment fund who took over ownership from chip-shop owner Brian Lennox last year - have been about as welcome as pro-Tibet protesters in Beijing. Fans neither warmed to them nor ever quite worked out their real intentions for the club. Sure, there were mentions of a spanking new stadium (why exactly?) and long-term investment, but it turned out Arkaga had gambled everything on the proposed All-Ireland League (a professional league formed of clubs north and south of the border) coming to fruition.
When that plan came to naught, well, they had no real notion of hanging around. Nor indeed, of dripfeeding any more money (they claim to have invested âŹ2.4m this year) into the club. This leaves City laden with debts of âŹ1.3, surviving day-to-day off transfer money from David Meyler and Dave Mooney (just snapped up by Reading) and the goodwill of players who have accepted a 70% wage cut to stay alive. The short-lived days of âŹ4,000-a-week player contracts and rumours of âŹ100,000-a-fortnight wage bills appear to be up.
If it all sounds suspiciously like your typically bonkers Irish football story (club chugs along, club reaches for stars, club crashes and burns), well, it is and it isnât. A history of football in Cork reads like a series of Big Brother: misplaced ambition, bickering and crisis upon crisis. Cork Hibernians FC went to the wall in the 1970s partly due to the cost of shipping Rodney Marsh over for games; Cork Celtic tried the same trick with George Best and Geoff Hurst - Bobby Tambling was a draw for a number of seasons yet they similarly nosedived into oblivion. The Cork City years (formed in 1984) have taken in the good (two league titles, a famous 1-1 draw with Bayern Munich in 1991), the bad (a messy ground move, a botched link-up with Leicester City, ongoing financial problems). And the ugly is waiting around the corner with bricks, bats and a court order to strip the club to its bare bones.
And yet, more than most other clubs here, thereâs been a point to Cork City. Eight thousand supporters crammed into Turnerâs Cross for a title decider with Derry a few years back. Just over half that showed up for a massive clash with Bohemian FC a few weeks ago, but a census of hardcore, rain or shine, City-till-I-die fanatics might just creep up to the 3,000 mark (their average is just over 3,500 which makes them the best-supported team in the land). Thereâs bang for your buck though. The fans are as loud, as brash and as contrary at times as youâd expect from Roy Keaneâs hometown, and you wonât find a more rocking atmosphere than a feverish night on the Shed - only in Cork could players have thrown themselves into the crowd to celebrate the league title in 2005.
Theyâre passionate and theyâre not shy about letting you know. Itâs just that there isnât quite enough of them. For the rest of the city, itâs not quite a love-hate thing, more a like-indifference thing, a casual fling without all that commitment malarkey. The problem lies with other sporting distractions. The Gaelic Athletic Association dragged well over 10,000 people from Cork to an All-Ireland semi-final in Dublin last weekend; Munster rugby team play their Celtic League games just around the corner; and English Premier League teams have the hearts and minds of most football supporters - just 292 people turned up at Turnerâs Cross for a League Cup game with Limerick City (admittedly it wasnât a glamour clash) the same night Manchester United played Barcelona in the Champions League last season.
On the pitch theyâve paid for success with players being pilfered year after year; Kevin Doyle went for a laughably low sum. Corkâs chairman Brian Lennox recalled not being able to watch Doyleâs impressive performances for Reading on Match of the Day such was his embarrassment. Shane Long, George OâCallaghan, Roy OâDonovan, Meyler and Mooney have all similarly followed the drain of talent into England. Still, Colin Healy washed up in Cork and stayed, Joe Gamble is good enough to have a few international caps and players are generally worshipped like Gods.
Now Corkâs greatest challenge is survival. A 10% cut from any Kevin Doyle transfer would go a long way towards staying afloat. The club both needs and doesnât need another Daddy Warbucks. A supporters trust has already been set up with a view to keeping the club running short-term and perhaps taking it over long-term. Players will no doubt leave, but thereâd be something awfully fitting - âhere today, here foreverâ went the banner - were the fans to end up saving Cork City.
Theyâre in huge trouble and the problem with any rescue attempt organised by the fans is that it makes little sense for the supporters to bail out Arkaga for their flawed business plans. Cork City donât have that long a history so if the club canât be saved then I think it would be cheaper and better for the supporters to build a club from the ground again and have it owned by the fans this time.
The LOI is a mess, the clubs submit accounts each month to wiggy Delaney, but no one saw this coming???
Pats and Bohs are paying players in excess of 4,000 a wk but nothing is said.
Both clubs wage bill is over the 65% of turnover set down by the FAI when they took control of the National League.
Both Bohs and Pats wage billâs percentage of turnover is higher than Madchester United and Chelski (or Chelsao) whoâs are around the 62% mark.
Waterford United are also on the vergeâŚbut nothing has been done about them. They havenât been mentioned at all in the past few wks when clubs going to the wall are mentioned, why??? Cos Delaney is from Waterford. Surely if Rovers, Longford and Cork have had points docked for going to the wall, then Waterford must have some action taken against them???
Shels Schoolboy Section owe the AUL 45,000, but are allowed to continue using the faciliites.
It would be better if the whole league went back to part time status as it doesnât generate the monies involved to sustain or support the strains of full time football, or generate enough revenue to support the ridiculous demands of footballers wages in the LOI. What are the wages being paid going to achieve in the long term??? There is no chance of a LOI team winning the CL or UEFA Cup. So realistically the only thing that is up for grabs is the domestic honours and a run of a few games in EuropeâŚno wonder some players see the LOI as a nice pension fund.
[quote=âmessiloneyâ]The LOI is a mess, the clubs submit accounts each month to wiggy Delaney, but no one saw this coming???
Pats and Bohs are paying players in excess of 4,000 a wk but nothing is said.
Both clubs wage bill is over the 65% of turnover set down by the FAI when they took control of the National League.
Both Bohs and Pats wage billâs percentage of turnover is higher than Madchester United and Chelski (or Chelsao) whoâs are around the 62% mark.
Waterford United are also on the vergeâŚbut nothing has been done about them. They havenât been mentioned at all in the past few wks when clubs going to the wall are mentioned, why??? Cos Delaney is from Waterford. Surely if Rovers, Longford and Cork have had points docked for going to the wall, then Waterford must have some action taken against them???
Shels Schoolboy Section owe the AUL 45,000, but are allowed to continue using the faciliites.
It would be better if the whole league went back to part time status as it doesnât generate the monies involved to sustain or support the strains of full time football, or generate enough revenue to support the ridiculous demands of footballers wages in the LOI. What are the wages being paid going to achieve in the long term??? There is no chance of a LOI team winning the CL or UEFA Cup. So realistically the only thing that is up for grabs is the domestic honours and a run of a few games in EuropeâŚno wonder some players see the LOI as a nice pension fund.[/quote]
wages are way too high indeed- is gamble earning more than what scott brown was earning at hibs & hibs get 8 more for there games tha cork
think rovers were docked points for sending in fradulent accounts though
its scandalous. Nâdo was class last nightâŚthats his good game out the way for the rest of the season