Sporting Fingal Gone Belly Up

[marinobohs]

The point is, what happens when Gannon stops giving you the money. Your attendances and sponsorship won't support a premier league club, maybe not even a first division club.

I would presume/hope that SF are looking at that possibility ? I know some/many clubs record does not inspire confidence but would not take it for granted that SF only hope is "close your eyes and hope" especially as Gannon's current difficulties are well flagged.
it is fairly obvious that the initial start up costs are the worst, is it not possible the club have a continguency plan for the future ?

[Lamper.sffc]

I would presume/hope that SF are looking at that possibility ? I know some/many clubs record does not inspire confidence but would not take it for granted that SF only hope is "close your eyes and hope" especially as Gannon's current difficulties are well flagged.
it is fairly obvious that the initial start up costs are the worst, is it not possible the club have a continguency plan for the future ?

I hope you are right. I doubt, but of course can never be certain, that the club do not have a plan in place should Gannon lose interest. As iv always said from the beginning, time will tell whether we do alright or not. We have actually lasted longer than a lot of others in here thought. While everybody else has been predicting doom and gloom for our club since the beginning, a hell of alot has actually happened to other clubs while we have been fine (so far) So, as people keep saying, that our way has proven to be the wrong way in the past, which I totally understand them saying. It really hasnt worked anyway for most of the clubs recently now has it. I personally will be crossing my fingers hoping all clubs can come this recession and a stonger, better league will come from it.

[The Lep]

The point is, what happens when Gannon stops giving you the money. Your attendances and sponsorship won't support a premier league club, maybe not even a first division club.

We can only worry about that when the time comes and as i said earlier it could be a case of us going part time and as a result getting relegated to the first. There isnt many clubs out there who's attendances and sponsorship cover all their expenses as we have seen before. At the moment we are still alive and i cant see much point in trying to put the nail in the Sporting coffin just yet just because we made a loss last year.

[The Observer]

I personally will be crossing my fingers hoping all clubs can come this recession and a stonger, better league will come from it.

To be fair the recession is an easy excuse for clubs in financial difficulty, the reality is that the vast majority took the high risk strategy of gambling on future earnings based on varying degrees of success, you could argue somewhat that the recession possibly affected bohs, as had the property sector not crashed so badly they would have no doubt been able to sell Dalymount for a substantial profit from which they could both clear their debts & acquire a new home of their own, but Shels, Cork, Derry & Drogheda on the other hand spent vast sums of money in the hope of recouping their outlay through prize money & european success, the recession had little to do with their 'all in' strategy IMO.

[marinobohs]

To be fair the recession is an easy excuse for clubs in financial difficulty, the reality is that the vast majority took the high risk strategy of gambling on future earnings based on varying degrees of success, you could argue somewhat that the recession possibly affected bohs, as had the property sector not crashed so badly they would have no doubt been able to sell Dalymount for a substantial profit from which they could both clear their debts & acquire a new home of their own, but Shels, Cork, Derry & Drogheda on the other hand spent vast sums of money in the hope of recouping their outlay through prize money & european success, the recession had little to do with their 'all in' strategy IMO.

Unfortunately the League has always had a turnover of clubs - add Shams, pats and Bohs (especially in the 1980s) to list of clubs in previous difficulties and Dublin city, Drumcondra and 101 cork teams. Smart business and LOI football just dont seem to be compatible. Would be nice (if unlikely) if we had no new names to add to the list for a while.

[The Lep]

My point is, Fingal won the FAI cup and also got promoted last year, and still are struggling to get any interest going, Blues are pretty bad when it comes to attendances, I'll admit, but at least when we're winning, we draw a crowd. We had at least a thousand at the opening game, about 200 travelled to Cork last Friday and we should have close to a thousand on Friday.

Fact is, there are too many Dublin clubs as it is, even though the caption area population there is massive, they have failed to get people interested and the money simply isn't coming in, this will only have one outcome within 3 years unless something is done.

Why didnt you post that first instead of posting an incorrect post that we have no fans. Our attendance average last year was more than Waterford's and they are a bigger county than Fingal. If Waterford are doing ok so whats stopping Fingal from doing so ? We have only had one home match of the season so far and the attendance was up and there isnt much point saying that people arnt interested just yet with just one home game gone.
We were not alone in making a loss last year so lets wait until after next year to see where we stand regarding our finance.

[The Observer]

Unfortunately the League has always had a turnover of clubs - add Shams, pats and Bohs (especially in the 1980s) to list of clubs in previous difficulties and Dublin city, Drumcondra and 101 cork teams. Smart business and LOI football just dont seem to be compatible. Would be nice (if unlikely) if we had no new names to add to the list for a while.

Thats my point though, the league has a history of clubs being run badly, to blame it on something such as the recession is a tad inaccurate IMO.

[Dalymountrower]

The bottom line is that a bunch of young people who may never have attended a League of Ireland match, are now supporting Sporting Fingal, long may it continue.
As for Gannon piling money in for reasons unknown, so what , better that it be put into Irish Football rather than be frittered away on flying a couple of harlots on a private plane to North Africa as apparently is the fashion among other "developers"

[osarusan]

As long as Fingal are not actually spending money they don't have, and as long as Gannon won't be able (or forced) to sell off assets if he goes to the wall, and as long as there is some kind of contingency plan at least being considered for coping in the event of Gannon having to pull out (or at least his money), then good luck to Fingal.
It's good that there are some new fans attending LOI games. Do I give a f**k that they're another club from Dublin? No I don't.

But we don't need another implosion of a LOI club. I hope there is enough common sense to realise the possibility of that at any club, and to put measures in place.

[GalwayRed]

Why didnt you post that first instead of posting an incorrect post that we have no fans. Our attendance average last year was more than Waterford's and they are a bigger county than Fingal. If Waterford are doing ok so whats stopping Fingal from doing so ? We have only had one home match of the season so far and the attendance was up and there isnt much point saying that people arnt interested just yet with just one home game gone.
We were not alone in making a loss last year so lets wait until after next year to see where we stand regarding our finance.

Im sorry but Fingal is NOT a county. Thats all I have to say on the matter.

[Schumi]

Waterford are hardly packing them in now either are they. If attendances where a measure of survival, every club in the league would be in trouble.

Waterford aren't spending a million a year though.

[Lamper.sffc]

Waterford aren't spending a million a year though.

Because waterford dont have it, we do and when we dont have it, Id assume we wont spend it.

[Lamper.sffc]

Thats my point though, the league has a history of clubs being run badly, to blame it on something such as the recession is a tad inaccurate IMO.

To blame it on something other than the recession is also a tad inacurate as well

I didnt mean for it to come across as it was just the recession. Of course its badly run clubs plus the recession. The two hitting at the same time is what the real problem is. Sponsorship will be down, crowds down. Maybe the price of tickets down and other such things. These have all hindered clubs in the last year or two plus the bad running of clubs. The point I was trying to make is that after all this crap is finished with, that I hope clubs and the league will come out of it the stonger.

[The Lep]

Im sorry but Fingal is NOT a county. Thats all I have to say on the matter.

Yes it is and it was a county before the city of Dublin reached into it.

[Réiteoir]

Maybe you could point it out to me on this map then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ir...ties_named.svg

Fingal is nothing more than an Administrative Division of Dublin - not even anywhere near a bona-fide County

[The Lep]

Im not gonna get into an argument of whether Fingal is a county or not. I live in County Fingal thats all that matters. If you dont think its a county then so be it.

[micls]

Im not gonna get into an argument of whether Fingal is a county or not. I live in County Fingal thats all that matters. If you dont think its a county then so be it.

Em...whether something is a county or not isn't an opinion.

There are 32 counties in Ireland. Fingal isn't one of them, at the moment. What anyone 'thinks' is irrelevant.

[higgins]

Are the full accounts available to view anywhere?
What other income did they have outside of Gannon?

With such a massive amount of money coming as a 'donation' how are they working the 65% rule?

Also unless the FAI have closed a few loopholes then we're about to see Arkaga Part II ??
Soon as our NAMA friend has his accounts frozen and Sporting Fingal are not close to a Transfer Window then it goes belly up!! As was also said even if they do slash the playing budget by that 750K!! (over 15K per week ) they won't be able to trade with the small fanbase they have and still avoid the 65% limit. If they do manage it then it's short term and they will be hammered week to week.

[micls]

With such a massive amount of money coming as a 'donation' how are they working the 65% rule?

Non-repayable donations are allowed to be included in the 65% rule. Director's loans aren't.

[total hoofball]

As iv always said from the beginning, time will tell whether we do alright or not. We have actually lasted longer than a lot of others in here thought. While everybody else has been predicting doom and gloom for our club since the beginning, a hell of alot has actually happened to other clubs while we have been fine (so far)

Lets get things straight. Sporting Fingal can only survive on Gannon's 'investment', 780k is too large of a figure for a club to bridge with no ground, no assets, no history and a small youthful fanbase in its infancy. Gerry Gannon is bust, broke, cream crackered. If Anglo Irish Bank were let sink as they should have been in September 2008 and Fianna Fáil never created the criminal NAMA scam, Gannon would be have been gone 12 months ago and Sporting Fingal would have sunk with him. We are watching a doomed club been given a stay of execution due to political/property developer ******ology. Cork, Derry, Kildare did not have this unique luxury that Sporting Fingal have. As the accounts show Sporting Fingal are wildly unsustainable, totally dependent on Gannon's invisible money and are effectively the LOI version of Anglo Irish Bank, a zombie football club who are doomed because the fundamentals of what is needed to be a sustainble LOI entity are entirely non-existant and are living on borrowed time (and money).