Listen to What's Happening At Athlone Town by Midlands Sport #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/midlandssport...t-athlone-town
A piece on Midlands radio today
And there, my friend, is the answer to the fact that you don't get what the problem is here. If it needs to be explained to you any further, there's probably no point doing so - as you just won't get it.
Just ask yourself why someone with no connection at all to Ireland would want to put money into a club that is chaotic, poorly supported and has very limited potential.
I think by "whatever reason" he meant what does it matter what the reason is............. how could the club be any worse off?.
Who owns the ground btw ? if the club don't then its hard to see what the angle is for any investor?
If the club does own the ground I suppose there is probably a property play.
So if ISIS decided they fancied financing Sligo that'd be fine? Of course you have to question what your club is being used for.
Upwards to the vanguard where the pressure is too high.
This is pretty naïve stuff tbh.
Athlone have a lot to lose. They could end up going bust, losing their ground and leaving senior football. That's the sort of thing that isn't unfeasible when a bunch of unknowns rock up at a club looking to splash money around 'for whatever reason'. You can be sure that if it all falls apart they'll be long gone and it'll be Athlone who'll be the worse off.
Irish (and indeed world) football is scattered with enough footballing corpses for people to not be blind about this sort of thing. I remember fans of teams like Gretna thinking everything was great and people were being rainclouds to raise issues.
Last edited by EatYerGreens; 14/03/2017 at 1:14 PM.
Even if Athlone don't own the ground, they'd lose the lease on it if they went bust. And the owner might prefer to develop the site or use it for other purposes rather than let a 'new' version of Athlone lease it back - particularly if there was unpaid rent when they went bust.
Though what use is a ground without a club to play in it anyway ?
More senior clubs have come and gone in the city of Cork alone than their are teams in the LOI First Division currently FFS. That's just in one town, with a large population, where sport is generally well-supported. It is naïve in the extreme to think that there is nothing that could go wrong for Athlone here.
The Wexford situation was different, as Wallace (understanding both property and his own precarious finances) separated the stadium to protect it. There's still probably a good chance that Wexford will disappear from the senior game at some future point though - just like Kilkenny City, Monaghan United, Drumcondra, Cork Hibernians, Cork United (twice), St James's Gate (twice), Dolphin, Brideville, Thurles Town, Newcastle West, Bray Unknowns, Cork Albert, Brooklyn, Dublin City, St Francis, Frankfort, Kildare County, Home Farm and its various guises, Sporting Fingal, Mervue United, Salthill Devon, and I could go on.... . Because Wexford haven't really developed a fanbase and a sustainable club to guarantee longer term survival. They could be the next Kilkenny, Monaghan or Kildare.
Last edited by EatYerGreens; 14/03/2017 at 5:08 PM.
Pleased to see the extensive due diligence was carried out. "We met with the new investors, we're not sure what they want".
Upwards to the vanguard where the pressure is too high.
Does anyone know the other clubs these investors are involved in? I saw a Lithuanian club who finished bottom of the league with a GD of about -140. It looks like they had a lot of Italian players drafted in for that season...
They first team operations manager was involved in FC Dainava in Lithuania. The manager was previously with Fatima, Sofia Farmer in some intermediate club in the north and FC Barreirense. You can check his record if you can call it that.
Not a lot of info on 1st team operations manager Marc Formeaux other than the disaster in Lithuania and that he is a player agent.. Also a denial that he is Eden Hazards agent.
Official Facebook page seems to be blocking people and removing posts now for asking questions and being critical of posts.
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