Dundalk Football Club has survived overnight, and there is a sense now that a deal to buy the club and avoid receivership is close.
Minister of State for Sport Thomas Byrne made a positive intervention yesterday, suggesting that the club’s application for €500,000 in Sports Capital Grant funding would be approved in full or almost so in the next two weeks. This would remove that amount from the worry list of the now sole group in discussion with owner Brian Ainscough.
None of that money can go towards the estimated €1 million it will take to get to the end of the season, but it is something that will pay for the essential upgrades needed to the pitch and the ground at Oriel Park.
A local businessman is believed to be part of the consortium that will resume negotiations with Boston-based Ainscough later today.
Dundalk has had a litany of owners in recent years, with US influence bouncing back to local, back to the US, and now perhaps local once more. Perhaps there is a lesson in that.
There is an accepted one for the FAI, which accepted that the licensing due diligence that saw Dundalk’s licence granted last year was done primarily on the existing owners at the time but that there were gaps that would now be filled in terms of a new owner taking over between the granting and the new season.
In November 2021, PEAK6’s tenure ended with the purchase of the club by former owner and local businessman Andy Connolly and the team behind StatSports.
That came to an end before the start of this season when Brian Ainscough, who is US-based, switched his Irish interest from Kerry FC to Dundalk.
Peter Halpin was appointed as the CEO, and things were looking up again for a club with a proud 121-year history. However, it had fallen from the heights of European competition and SSE Airtricity League titles to a battle against relegation.
That is so again this year with Dundalk and Drogheda United adrift of Bohemians. Dundalk are a point behind and have played a game more. They have six matches left to avoid automatic relegation and get into a play-off. The fact that it will likely be between the two Louth clubs makes it even harder and the last game of the season is inevitably between the two.
Today looks like a vital one in how the negotiations are progressing.
The FAI have helped by advancing some money from what would be due at the end of the season, but what the club really needs is a new investor with the financial soundness to absorb a poor season or two on the pitch and still invest for the long term.
They do not grow on trees, but they do exist.
Add in the strong local support for the club, and you have to hope that a solution can be found.
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