Cork City denied a licence; club to be wound up; FORAS to enter First Division

[shep]

would bray be oblidged to play a game in this instance

Yeah,because what if a player got suspended(i know injured was already mentioned)

Ah hopefully by some miracle they will be around come Friday,a big points deduction and let them see out the season even with a team of youths...if for nothing else at least there would be revenue from gate reciepts for FORAS

[Joseph McSweene]

would bray be oblidged to play a game in this instance

Don't think they'd have to play it, but they possibly would. Might be interested in a few defenders from us considering the state of their defending in some games this season!

[EalingGreen]

Following the demise of Cobh this now leaves the 2nd biggest city (and biggest county) in Ireland without a LOI team.

Certainly no LOI team, but Cork is not Ireland's 2nd biggest city. According to the 2006 Irish Census, the population figures are:

Cork City = 119,418
Metropolitan Cork = 274,000
County Cork = 481,295

By contrast, the latest population figures from NI are:
Belfast City = 267,374
Greater (or "Metropolitan") Belfast = 645,536.

By way of comparison, Belfast has four teams in the Irish Premier League (Glens, Linfield, Crues and Cliftonville), plus another (Donegal Celtic) in the Championship.

Hope they can regroup in some form in the future

Seeing as Belfast has too many teams, and Cork now has none, I'd be quite happy to let you have one of our spares for free.
"Cork True Blues" or maybe "Linfield Rebels" anyone?

http://www.cso.ie/statistics/popofeachprovcountycity2006.htm

http://www.belfastcity.gov.uk/factsandfigures/demographics.asp

[passinginterest]

Just to show that it's not only the League of Ireland that sees clubs go into liquidation: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/foot...on/8174920.stm

Actually a few similarities, in that a new owner takes over, claims to have invested lots of personal money and continues to refuse to admit that all is lost.

[White Horse]

Certainly no LOI team, but Cork is not Ireland's 2nd biggest city. According to the 2006 Irish Census, the population figures are:

Cork City = 119,418
Metropolitan Cork = 274,000
County Cork = 481,295

By contrast, the latest population figures from NI are:
Belfast City = 267,374
Greater (or "Metropolitan") Belfast = 645,536.

I'd say he was referring to the country rather than the island.

[gufc2000]

What impact does "free agent" status have as regards the transfer window. Can other LoI clubs sign free agents after the transfer window closes?

I suspect that there is very little opportunity for most of these players anyway, with other LoI clubs before the close season. Sligo, Drogheda and Dundalk have been active in signing players in the window, and presumable are fully committed. Shamrock Rovers may have some capacity, Bohs have a transfer embrago and it is difficult to see any of the remainder of Derry, Galway, St Pats or Bray, having any signifcant means to sign new players.

If we can sell Jayo quickly, then we may be able to sign a replacement, but whether anyone from Cork wants to play part-time football in Galway is another days work. Seamus Conneely is wanted by Middlesbrough aswell so if both leave we are down to a squad of 16, so we would need 1 or 2 players

[EalingGreen]

I'd say he was referring to the country rather than the island.

Fair enough.

Actually it was that although I've been to Cork, his post set me wondering about how big it is compared with Belfast.

And when I saw that Belfast is around twice as big, it then struck me as curious how Cork has struggled down the years to maintain even one senior club, whilst Belfast has so many*.

That's all really.

P.S. The offer to let the Cork take Linfield off our hands for free still stands!

* - Late Edit: I forgot to mention Belfast Celtic, who were pretty massive in the day, plus Distillery used to be a decent-sized Belfast club, with a proud history, until they were effectively forced out of their Grosvenor Road ground in West Belfast by the Troubles/re-development, eventually re-locating to Lisburn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisburn_Distillery_F.C.

[Joseph McSweene]

If we can sell Jayo quickly, then we may be able to sign a replacement, but whether anyone from Cork wants to play part-time football in Galway is another days work. Seamus Conneely is wanted by Middlesbrough aswell so if both leave we are down to a squad of 16, so we would need 1 or 2 players

Billy Dennehy is from Kerry so he might be interested-especially with Kells Bells just having signed permenantly with ye. Don't know after that really-our front line was the weak part of our team, better to look at central midfield and defenders from our squad.

[White Horse]

And when I saw that Belfast is around twice as big, it then struck me as curious how Cork has struggled down the years to maintain even one senior club, whilst Belfast has so many.

GAA is very very strong, both hurling and gaelic football. Also the middle class types gravitate towards rugby.

It still is a bit of a mystery though. 5,000 fans isn't a lot in a city of that size.

As for Linfield, I'd swap them for Bohs.

[EalingGreen]

[Cork] GAA is very very strong, both hurling and gaelic football. Also the middle class types gravitate towards rugby.

Whereas GAA* in Belfast/Antrim has never been very strong and rugby, whilst reasonably popular, is still pretty much confined to the middle-class/Grammar school set, like Cork.

It's all a bit like Derry, tbh, which has always been a "football city", but nothing much for GAA, despite being predominantly Nationalist.

* - Hurling is strong in the Glens of Antrim, but that still only makes it a bit of a niche sport, tbh.

It still is a bit of a mystery though. 5,000 fans isn't a lot in a city of that size.

It all goes to reinforce for me the importance of history and tradition etc, as a factor in a club/city/region's success in sport. That is, you can't grow specific plants in the wrong soil.

As for Linfield, I'd swap them for Bohs.

We don't want a swap, we just want rid of them...

[Dunny]

Found this on the Cork forum. There was a FORAS meeting tonight.

Confirmed offer put in to purchase the club ,take over all debt -refused
Foras offer to take over the Club - refused

4 man consortium led by Danny Drew

[adamd164]

Beggars belief!

The club will now fold with him having rejected the bid from FORAS. He is a complete scumbag.

[sonofstan]

Found this on the Cork forum. There was a FORAS meeting tonight.

What's Danny Drew doing?!

[adamd164]

Drew was interested during examinership also and the club was not given to him. It was never going to be as the FAI don't want to deal with him.

The more relevant bit is that Coughlan turned down a recent FORAS bid. It shows up his "want to hand over the club to the fans" bull for what it is. He's out for himself and has always been. God knows what schemes he's got going, but guaranteed they're there. He is a shyster.

[sonofstan]

Let me see if this is right: Cork City Investments Ltd. will be wound up by order of Ms. Justice LaFoy on Friday morning if it - effectively Tom Coughlan - can't come up with 440k to pay the revenue. In that case, presumably a court appointed liquidator will move in and try and recover whatever assets it can in order to pay the company's creditors, with Revenue at the head of the list. At a guess, the company won't have anything like the requisite amount, and the revenue will go away with a small percentage of what is rightfully theirs (and therefore, ours).

Nevertheless, in the meantime, Coughlan is perfectly entitled to turn down an offer to take over the club, pay off the taxman and keep the thing going? Can the court order him to sell to a viable bidder? can the liquidator do the same?