The Drogheda thread - budget being revised

http://www.drogheda-independent.ie/s...k-2056873.html

Drogs on the brink

CLUB HOLDS CRISIS MEETING IN BID TO PREVENT MELTDOWN


By Marcus CAVAROLI
Wednesday February 10 2010

A SMALL but significant cash injection – believed to be from shirt sponsors Hunky Dorys – boosted Drogheda United's survival hopes last night as desperate last-ditch efforts to save the club from extinction continued into the early hours. An unnamed source also pledged a loan to help keep the Drogs afloat, and a public meeting of supporters was hastily arranged at 11am yesterday for last night in the clubhouse in the hopes of generating further funds.
However, it remains to be seen whether the fans have the stomach for another rescue mission, after they raised € 200,000 in two weeks to save the club from going to the wall at the end of 2007.
A straw poll of Claret and Blue Club members by the Drogheda Independent yesterday showed that supporters are divided about whether they would be willing – or able – to pledge more money. They are already paying € 5 a week or more towards United's running costs.
One prominent fan, Brian Whelan, summed up the feelings of many, saying: 'I've been thinking about whether I would be prepared to take out a second subscription [to the Claret and Blue Club].
'It's not to do with the money, it's whether it will make a difference.
'I don't know if it would be possible, but we would have to be shown the books. I want to see what the budget is and where the money is going.
'It's a very worrying situation. Two years ago the club got money in from people who hadn't been to a game in 20 years, but I can't see that happening again.'
Reports that the club couldn't sustain its planned budget for 2010 first surfaced in mid-December, soon after general manager Sean Connolly was sacked, and with no significant investment in the meantime a friendly against a Celtic XI was hastily organised for last Wednesday.
However, the directors' hopes that the game would be a sell-out proved hugely optimistic, as the stadium was only half-full and the disappointing gate receipts exacerbated Drogheda's cash shortfall.
No one from the club was available for comment yesterday as the directors continued the fight to prevent Drogheda United going out of business, but the FAI have been informed of the club's desperate plight and are monitoring the situation closely.
The Independent Licencing Committee is due to meet next Monday to decide on which clubs will receive Premier and First Division licences for the new season, which begins on March 5th, and there must be a possibility that Drogheda will be demoted, even if they survive.
The Leinster Senior Cup match away to St Patrick's – scheduled for tonight ( Wednesday) – has been postponed because of the ongoing crisis.
It's not clear whether the annual Jim Malone Cup match against Dundalk, originally scheduled for next Tuesday at Oriel Park but put back 48 hours until Thursday (7.45pm), will now go ahead. Last weekend's scheduled friendly at home to Monaghan United was called off because United Park was unplayable.
As if Drogheda didn't have enough problems, the clubhouse phone was unobtainable yesterday, although that is not because the club has been disconnected. In fact, a fault on the line was reported on Monday and eircom have stated that it will take four days to repair.
- Marcus CAVAROLI

A huge amount of hot air in that article to be fair. No suggestion of why they're "facing extinction", do they owe players? do they owe the Revenue? Anything that would stop them getting a licence on a reduced budget?. The last paragraph is stupid as well. Not setting out to defend Drogs as such by the way it's just a poor article.

agreed, that is a shocker of an article. The last sentence is just bizarre...

To all the Drogs fans, good luck and hope you can push on from here and keep the club going for the season.

This just seems to prove that the meeja are revelling in every last little bit of news to stick knives into LOI clubs. Of course the clubs are providing many of the knives themselves, but it seems that the only way an Irish club can get into our wonderful sporting mentality is if they're being dragged in front of a judge or on the verge of oblivion.

The media are against the league, but you said it yourself - the clubs keep handing them ammunition, no more than Drogs at the moment. Actually, sorry I forgot there was never any issue with the revenue and sure they hadn't even submitted a budget yet, and wasn't it only the manager and few players screwed - purely a media witch hunt.

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Originally Posted by Macy

The media are against the league, but you said it yourself - the clubs keep handing them ammunition, no more than Drogs at the moment. Actually, sorry I forgot there was never any issue with the revenue and sure they hadn't even submitted a budget yet, and wasn't it only the manager and few players screwed - purely a media witch hunt.

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As a matter of statistical excercise (which I did with a colleague) go back through any month of news coverage of the LOI and count the number of "positive" and "negative" articles, and on a day by day basis see how many stories are reported. It's 3-2 in favour of negative and the main media (tv and radio) tilt it to 2-1 on their own. Our clubs, their rulers, the league and games rulers don't make it any easier, however in our culture of "bleed to lead" bad news is better than good and it's up to the clubs and the authorities to rectify this as much as is possible.

Hunky Dorys one of their main sponsors actually increased their contribution this week - so they obviously haven't withdrawn their sponsorship.

What sponsors suddenly realised there is now a recession and withdrew sposorship they pledged 3 months ago, on which the 2010 budget was based

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Originally Posted by Macy

The media are against the league, but you said it yourself - the clubs keep handing them ammunition, no more than Drogs at the moment. Actually, sorry I forgot there was never any issue with the revenue and sure they hadn't even submitted a budget yet, and wasn't it only the manager and few players screwed - purely a media witch hunt.

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Not sure what your problem is exactly ? You want to come clean and let us know , we are telling you exactly what happened . We never owed the revenue money , our budget wasnt refused because it wasnt given in until the deadline . Budgets meetings were held with the fai allright , it had to be reduced twice .Some players werent happy about it and left .Fair play to them if you ask me , AM and other players still might walk and thats there choice . There is a witchhunt in the media about Dufc and some posters on here are intent on not listening to what your being told .Not sure why , not much happening with Longford town or what ?

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Originally Posted by ndrog

Not sure what your problem is exactly ? You want to come clean and let us know , we are telling you exactly what happened . We never owed the revenue money , our budget wasnt refused because it wasnt given in until the deadline . Budgets meetings were held with the fai allright , it had to be reduced twice .Some players werent happy about it and left .Fair play to them if you ask me , AM and other players still might walk and thats there choice . There is a witchhunt in the media about Dufc and some posters on here are intent on not listening to what your being told .Not sure why , not much happening with Longford town or what ?

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ndrog, I don't think it's a particular pick on one club, but bad news is sought out and blown up to sell papers, that's how they work. Drogheda were open and discussed with their stakeholders (supporters) what is happening, so it gets twisted into "yet another league club in crisis". There are journos undoubtedly trawling such forums as this to glean extra bits of info to create stories, or defend what they've written. It's the modern media.

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Originally Posted by ndrog

our budget wasnt refused because it wasnt given in until the deadline . Budgets meetings were held with the fai allright , it had to be reduced twice

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What's the difference between the FAI refusing a budget and it being reduced after meeting with the FAI?

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Originally Posted by Schumi

What's the difference between the FAI refusing a budget and it being reduced after meeting with the FAI?

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Who cares?!! The correct action was taken. Thats good enough for me.

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Originally Posted by ndrog

There is a witchhunt in the media about Dufc and some posters on here are intent on not listening to what your being told .Not sure why , not much happening with Longford town or what ?

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It's quite simple. Drogheda United cheated their way to a title by spending money they didn't have. The taxpayer had to bail them out and people want to make sure it doesn't happen again.

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Originally Posted by ndrog

There is a witchhunt in the media about Dufc and some posters on here are intent on not listening to what your being told .

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There is absolutely no doubt that the media (especially the national broadsheets) have an unhealthy appetite to focus on the negatives in LoI- but in truth the recent Cork and Derry sagas in particular have given them loads to feast upon, along with the catastrophes at Shelbourne, Cork and Drogheda in recent seasons - with Bohemians, St Pats, Galway and Dundalk also having various degrees of financial difficulties that were newsworthy.

When it comes to local media (like the Drogheda Independent and LMFM radio), there is usually a very sympathetic ear and a willingness to present the story broadly along the lines the club wish. I can't help but wonder if this is the case here, and that perhaps it is actually in the clubs best interest to present the situation as the club being "on the brink of extinction" to try to galvanise support. This also can have the effect of supporters being relieved at the club not folding and therefore being more accepting of the reduced budget and possible loss of manager and some players.

All that really matters is that Drogheda United survive, and whether posters here accept what you have posted or not is of little importance in the overall picture. But there is a credibility problem with some of the detail posted here about Drogheda's budget not being subimtted/rejected:

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Originally Posted by ndrog

Outcome from the meeting tonight , our budget was never refused by the fai because it was never submitted in the first place . ..

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Originally Posted by ndrog

.... our budget wasnt refused because it wasnt given in until the deadline .

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Many Drogheda supporters I have spoken to are also concerned that the budget was flagged by Roisin Phillips as being a possible €5,000pw before Christmas, yet Daly, Harris and O'Connor were offered deals estimated at about €2,200. There seems to be a real disconnect here, and it is inevitable that unhealthy speculation will continue until licensing reaches its conclusion.

I wish you guys all the best in getting things sorted, and you can be assured of the normal warm welcome in Oriel Park next Thursday night!

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Originally Posted by Schumi

What's the difference between the FAI refusing a budget and it being reduced after meeting with the FAI?

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There is a very obvious difference ! You want me to spell it out for you - Requested informal meetings were held with representatives of the FAI to ask advice about budget requirements ets , they were advised that the budget they were going with would be refused , it was then revised twice to what the club seen as appropriate with regard to wages , overheads , sponsorship etc . I havent denied for one min that it was handled badly but some of the nonsense in the media is out of order and only makes the situation worse .

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Originally Posted by White Horse

It's quite simple. Drogheda United cheated their way to a title by spending money they didn't have. The taxpayer had to bail them out and people want to make sure it doesn't happen again.

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People ? Yeah the media are very concerned with the tax payer allright , get real ffs . The supporters and the people of the town dug seriously deep to save this football club . And we won the title the year before we went bust actually . We are dealing with the situation now before the season starts and people still arent happy . Maybe we should have waited until half way through the season and cut players wages just like you did

ndrog - calm down ffs.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

ndrog - calm down ffs.

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Calm down me hole! He was well within his rights to reply the way he did, to what was an obvious inflammatory post from White Horse

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Originally Posted by WindmillWarrior

Calm down me hole! He was well within his rights to reply the way he did, to what was an obvious inflammatory post from White Horse

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Don't agree. You can respond to a post without going into hysterics (You want me to spell it out for you?).

to be fair rereading ndrogs post, its not exactly "hysterics". He is rising to the bait but not "hysterics (yet :) ). The aim by whitehorse was to insult with the word "cheated" and it was designed to be inflammatory and deserved aslap on the wrist rather than ndrog.

A person can claim we won the league through gross incompetence on the financial side , building the future on a house of cards, idiotic policies but to claim "cheated" is implying a knowing breaking of rules and if this is the case then evidence should be used to support this such as pointing out the rules (chapter and verse" that where broken and evidence that we intentially broke them.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

ndrog - calm down ffs.

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Im very calm stu , just sick of saying the same thing over and over again . Some people just dont want to belive me and would rather post up crap . Lots of people are putting in serious hours of work to make this club work and comments like that of whitehorse are just pathetic
. We aretrying to do the right thing , shock horror mistakes have and will be made . Get over it everyone .