What a mess, gutted beyond words, who's truly to blame? certainly not St. Pats, probably the FAI as per usual. Could spell the end for another LOI club.
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What a mess, gutted beyond words, who's truly to blame? certainly not St. Pats, probably the FAI as per usual. Could spell the end for another LOI club.
Sporting Fingal was a different story to Waterford scenario we are seeing, Fingal were a completely newly formed football club whereas Lee Power's Waterford were a newly formed entity that failed to pay off all creditors from the previous Waterford United entity. If Power had cleared all debts as was previously claimed by himself and the FAI then the same exemption process was there for Waterford to legitimately play in Europe
Would Waterford consider an appeal to the CAS, or would that just be risking significant legal expenses with little hope for success?
Practically zero chance of success, and I'm sure it would be costly wiping out some of that 240k even if it was overturned. UEFA's rules on this are clearcut. If a new entity of 3 years or less has cleared 100% of the previous entities debts then they can apply for exemption, if there are any creditors still out of pocket then they cannot play in any European competition
The usual debacle.One unpleasant club owner winning out over another marginally more unpleasant club owner, both of whom have overspent chasing European qualification.
What a f up by Waterford and the FAI
The brief statement by FAI about the rejection of the UEFA licence just mentions the 3 year rule and nothing about unpaid debts. Fran Gavin advised a few months ago all would be fine for Waterford for Europe so we should have started worrying then!
There needs to be more clarity on why Waterford were given these assurances only for UEFA to decide within a very short time that we couldn't play in Europe.
There's a lot of disappointed and angry Waterford fans with the club, the FAI and St Pats in the firing line.
St Pat's shouldn't be in the firing line here.
The question to be asked of Lee Power is why start a new company if he was paying all debts? It makes no sense given this exact rule
Obviously the FAI are in all probability complicit in this mess as well
Given what Lee Power has said today the blame has to lie squarely with the FAI.
If its true that they were assured that the European place was guaranteed then its managed to paint the FAI in an even worse light .
And they've also used St Patrick's Athletic as a deflection which is why they're getting all the unwarranted stick....
From this:
https://www.waterfordfc.ie/lee-power...-john-delaney/
To ThisQuote:
“John’s involvement and support to Waterford has been excellent and it needs to be put on record.
https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2019...ed-by-the-fai/
in the space of two weeks!Quote:
We feel we have been totally misled by the FAI and were given assurances throughout this five-month process by them that the licence would be granted.
I suppose 'involvement and support' wasn't that excellent after all.
Feel sorry for Waterford fans.
Waterford and Lee Power can plead ignorance, blame the FAI, Pats or whoever but everything on UEFA Club licensing is on their website, a quick google search could have saved your troubles but in reality Power and the FAI knew exactly what they were doing hoping to flout UEFA regulations when there were outstanding creditors
Its in black and white on the link on the UEFA website, pages 10, 14, 50, 51, 55 cover Waterford's scenario
https://www.uefa.com/insideuefa/prot...ing/index.html
Good timing by Pats in getting this over turned. How didn't they object to this at the end of last season?
Waterford said in their statement that this has been ongoing for five months so I think Pats intervention was not a factor at all. Seems it’s more like the FAI announced that Pats had a query when it would be likely they already knew the UEFA judgement, in order to try and shift any ire towards Pats and away from them.
So the obvious answer to this is I don't know what Power did.
But let's speculate. It's all we can do, and it's fun.
We know that in 2014, Bray Wanderers traded as Bray Wanderers Limited, which in turn was owned by various shareholders - Pat Devlin, Eddie Cox, Eddie Slevin, etc. You can see this in the CRO records.
In 2015, the club was bought over by Denis O'Connor and Gerry Mulvey. They set up a new company, Milway Dawn Limited, to buy Bray Wanderers Limited - again, you can see this in the CRO records. But the club continued to trade as Bray Wanderers Limited and, importantly, the licence was held in the name of Bray Wanderers Limited.
So the club was bought, but no debts were written off and the continuity was kept. There was never any doubts cast over Bray's eligibility to play in Europe if they qualified (and they came close in 2016) - albeit that push never came to shove here.
So if Waterford did the same thing, why the different outcome? Well, one obvious answer is that they didn't do the same thing. I think Lee Power came along and set up a new company and applied for a club licence through that new company. This is why the club name had to change - because Waterford United was, say ABC Limited, but Power wanted DEF Limited to be the company, so he couldn't call the club Waterford United because that club already existed. Waterford United were simply left to die.
The FAI must have known that there were issues with this because it was literally 18 months since something similar had happened with Bray Wanderers.
So I still think the high probability is Power deliberately set up a new company to start Waterford off with a clean financial slate - it helps that if a First Division club goes bust, they start back at the same level, which is daft. If that's the case, then they screwed over Cobh in 2017; Cobh were runners-up to Waterford that year. This is the exact reason the rule is in place.
If the above is the case, then Waterford absolutely deserve to be refused permission to play in Europe this year, and Power and the FAI have combined to screw over their fans.
The only plus in all of this is that even if Power goes, there's at least been a huge increase in local interest, which may be somewhat sustainable if they can stay up and rebuild.
Depending on what assurances the FAI gave Waterford that they would be in Europe there could be some very interesting legal battles on the way. Doubt we'll see another letter of support for Delaney from Power anyway
The answer to that may lie in this article the issue has been ongoing for a number of months since Pats first made their moves some months ago.
Gavin took the viewpoint that Waterford were uefa certified because the old debts were paid.