Felt like there wasn't really a decent thread to put this into. Their vote went through to give the Comers 85% of the club. Interesting times ahead.
https://galwayunitedfc.ie/galway-united-club-statement/
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
A lot of fans from the outside looking in will immediately jump to skepticism over this takeover.
Fan ownership ideally is the way forward, but it does not fit all clubs and it never really took off in Galway for a few different reasons.
Presently I believe there is just over 100 active Co-op members, which should give people a perspective on how poorly supported it is. At its highest, I believe it probably had 200-250 members at most.
The Co-op never really had a huge say in the running of the club and many people ended up not renewing their membership (including myself).
The Comers have displayed their goodwill over their eight year sponsorship of the club, giving roughly €1.5m, which would be at the top end of sponsorship in the country.
The club has not won a trophy since 1997, it's been starved of success and the Comers are promising to develop our own training facilities, along with investing heavily in the squad. Their opening injection of €500,000 is a serious statement of intent.
Fan ownership clearly is not working at the club and what the Comer brothers are offering, off the back of their very generous sponsorship, is very appealing.
They have received very little back in return for their sponsorship, and yet they have continued to bankroll the club more or less.
Last edited by Olander; 31/03/2022 at 9:06 AM.
roddy collins you're a flanker you're a flanker!
Agree 100%.
In fairness to them they probably know they need to go deeper into the cash to get Galway up and running properly and you cant blame them for deciding that throwing a few million into the club with no way of getting it back makes sense.
At least they can "hope" to get a return if they own most of it themselves.
Id say leaving 15% with the fans is a show of faith as well as o dont think Galway fans would have voted no if they had asked for 100%.
Yeah at least they have a track record of supporting the club and they aren't in it for the money or a land grab. Not that anyone in their right mind should get involved in LOI for the money.
Upwards to the vanguard where the pressure is too high.
imagine getting that level of investment and having JC running your transfer dealings. the comers will learn soon enough. seems like a good move for the club from the outside. hopefully they are in a position to take advantage of the money next season from a cork point of view
Agree that having proven long-term supporters of the club buying it is infinitely superior to an Arkaga or Peak 6 mode. So long as Comer stay solvent, you would hope and expect that this will be a broadly positive move for Galway United. It should certainly be interesting anyway.
Would be great to see Galway doing well. We need representatives from the main cities outside Dublin - Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford (and Derry) - in the top tier.
On the football side it looks like a great thing for Galway and good luck to them,most clubs would jump at someone promising to pump in another 500k and upgrade their ground.
On the negative side looking through some reaction from locals it seems the people involved are contributing to dereliction and lack of housing in Galway City,you can see why people would have reservations about the move if that is indeed the case…….
Last edited by joey B; 31/03/2022 at 2:03 PM.
Irish by birth ,Harps by the grace of god.
Anyone know any details of deal a few years ago with the Arabs. The Comer bros we're part of that?
So the lads who insisted nick leeson was a decent skin sold up to the scum of the earth.
I would have done the same, this fan owned mumbo jumbo doesn't fly in Ireland.
Hopefully those two Limerick tech brother fellas will see a headline somewhere and feel the need to one up
If you were listening to OTBam Johnny Ward wasnt giving away who he was voting for in the ballot. I think the Comer bros is a win win situation imo.
Gary Cronin is he the right man to manage Longford Town?
Originally Posted by Olander
I think this sums it up pretty well - also Galway United doesn't really have a history of fan ownership like Bohs, Sligo or Harps so it's not like we're selling out years of history by going private.
Although there is talk of pushing up the first team budget I actually think the main focus behind the project in the development of the Mountain South complex near Athenry which will give a base for the Galway United Academy as well as Connacht hockey amongst other sports.
There definitely is a bit of a concern about the Comer's ownership of property around Galway in a housing crisis and the complete shambles of the Corrib Great Southern Hotel situation and understandably there will be some who are annoyed that they're the ones taking ownership.
Outside of that they have shown support to the club over a number of years so I don't think they'll be looking to screw us over, or even to make money out of this, maybe they feel this is their way of giving back to Galway, similar to JP McManus in Limerick.
Finally just on the question of the Saudi takeover they weren't involved in that at all.
I phoned the speaking clock to hear a voice speak, it said - "At the tone you will be very much alone"
Before they sponsored Galway Utd Julian did they support Galway Utd?
Gary Cronin is he the right man to manage Longford Town?
A very close friend is a massive gufc fan. We were talking to them as far back as 2010.
Good luck to Galway with the Comers on board is all i'll say to their petrified tenants currently waiting for the hardmen employed by them to evict with no legal argument.
good luck to galway fans.... you'll need it dealing with caulfield ball!
Hopefully the planning permission goes smoothly and the work starts soon. Well done to the Comer brothers who are reinvesting in their home county after being very successful abroad. If this is completed it will be a template for other clubs and organisations. The future is cooperation between different sports in areas such as this.
New Partnership with gti
https://galwayunitedfc.ie/gufc-gti-l...ent-programme/
Great work being done behind the scenes.
Have they any plans to do anything with the stadium ?
There was talk of stadium improvements in their bid to take over the club but the Galway FA own the ground so there's probably a limited amount that can be done for the moment. There was talk of fixing the scoreboard etc.
At the moment the ground is one of the best in the League although should we get promoted the way crowds currently are and with the larger away support we possibly could do with some additional capacity - I think at the moment it's restricted at 4,200. There's probably potential to put a small covered stand/terrace at the carpark end of the ground - this would probably mean taking a bit of space from the carpark but that shouldn't be too much of an issue but I wouldn't expect anything imminently - that's well down on the priority list.
I phoned the speaking clock to hear a voice speak, it said - "At the tone you will be very much alone"
Posting Permissions
Quote
Bookmarks