Galway in financial turmoil

**A face** · 01/07/2010, 8:37 AM

Galway in financial turmoil

The future of Galway United was thrown into doubt yesterday when the club announced that its players have agreed to defer a week's wages in order to steer the club through severe financial difficulties. The Tribesmen's CEO Nick Leeson met with manager Sean Connor and his players yesterday morning and agreed the wage deferral, while the club has dropped their price to €10 for their next home Airtricity League clash against Bray Wanderers next Monday.

"Gates have been far worse than anticipated this season and if we continue as we are, the future of the club would be put at risk," warned Leeson. "The players agreed unanimously to the deferral and remain extremely positive about the club's chances in the Airtricity League and FAI Cup. I applaud them one and all for this decision.

Read more at www.independent.ie

**Roo69** · 01/07/2010, 8:48 AM

Shocking how they could over estimate on their gates so badly. When will clubs start to learn?

**Mr A** · 01/07/2010, 8:57 AM

Any serious issue like this, even if it's only involving a single club, should be in the LOI forum in my opinion.

Anyway, not surprised to hear this at all. At the start of the year there was a lot of speculation that GUFC would go amateur this season so it was very surprising when Connor was appointed and some very decent players signed.

But then, if they had gone amateur crowds would have probably been even worse again and the debts may well have seen problems even earlier than they have come up.

It's a horrible time for any LOI club with debt problems- perhaps GUFC should consider the 'phoenix' route taken by Derry and others.

**gufc2000** · 01/07/2010, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by Roo69

Shocking how they could over estimate on their gates so badly. When will clubs start to learn?

The club never over estimated gates this year, how could they given that crowds were well down last year. The problem stems from 2007 and 2008

**pineapple stu** · 01/07/2010, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by Nick Leeson

Gates have been far worse than anticipated this season

Sounds very much like overestimating gates to me. (Not that previous madness wasn't a factor either)

**gufc2000** · 01/07/2010, 10:31 AM

Well the club didn't expect crowds of 700-800, but unfortunately thats whats happened

**pineapple stu** · 01/07/2010, 10:33 AM

So you're saying they did overestimate gates this year?

**gufc2000** · 01/07/2010, 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by pineapple stu

So you're saying they did overestimate gates this year?

Not badly like mentioned above, not in the way I quoted.

The worst thing is, is that we could now lose O'Donnell, Sheppard, Flood and Conneely.

**Patrick Dunne** · 01/07/2010, 10:47 AM

Yes. We are down approx €5,000 per match (200 - 300 people spending €15 - €20).

Net €50,000, equivalent of ten weeks wages.

**total hoofball** · 01/07/2010, 10:52 AM

IIRC before the season started Galway were in this similar position before some local businessman came in to top up their budget for the season

Sounds to me they are leaking their troubles as an ultimate doomsday scenario in order to get another cash injection to make for their latest budgetory screw up

Any club with Nick ****in Leeson as their CEO deserves what they get

**outspoken** · 01/07/2010, 10:54 AM

I really hope Galway will be ok a great club and it would be a massive blow for the entire league to lose them

**Dundalkjames** · 01/07/2010, 11:18 AM

Wheres SC and his glamour friendlies now?

**WoodquayBoy** · 01/07/2010, 11:21 AM

In reply to Dundalkjames, we have Liverpool in the first week of August for a start

**peadar1987** · 01/07/2010, 11:23 AM

Oh for feck sake!

**gufc2000** · 01/07/2010, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by Dundalkjames

Wheres SC and his glamour friendlies now?

We had Hull over last Feburary and Liverpool are coming over in August. Given that we have 36 league matches to play, its hard to play friendlies every other week

**sligo23** · 01/07/2010, 11:28 AM

Originally Posted by WoodquayBoy

In reply to Dundalkjames, we have Liverpool in the first week of August for a start

He said 'glamour friendlies'

**dong** · 01/07/2010, 12:00 PM

Why is this hidden away in the Galway section?
We had pages and pages about Cork and Derry on the main LoI Premier and First Division forum, so what exactly is different here?
Tough times for Galway but if their crowds are down so much it's hardly surprising they could not sustain paying wages. The attendances in Terryland were hardly great to begin with.
At least the licensing rules are working well anyways.

**Riddickcule** · 01/07/2010, 12:04 PM

Owned.

**gufct** · 01/07/2010, 12:30 PM

Our budget would be one of the smallest in the league and that was based on gates of Approximately 1,100 which is hardly wildly overestimating our gates.We are just back after a 2 week break where we had no income and may well have only 1 home game against Bray on Monday between now and the end of July with both Rovers and Dundalk involved in Europe. It was the moderators that put the post in here but I think there are a lot more than GUFC facing down the barrell this season.

We hopefully will survive but in what guise is another thing because the apathy in Galway towards LOI football has increased significantly in the last 3 years.