Cost of making a stand too high

Many an hour we have passed staring at the blinking cursor trying to think of a topic to fill 1,150 words for a Monday morning. Then along comes a week when the FAI announces it is building a church, the Olympic movement is in spasm and Irish swimming is at war. Truly sports scandals are like Gerry Ryan TV shows. They don't come along that often, but when they do they are so horrific as to be compulsive.

We will concentrate on The Arena. We have a suspicion that the first leverage the Government will have on the Sellafield issue is when people on the west coast of Britain begin to complain about being kept awake by the sound of Irish people applauding themselves. This week's standing ovation was for The Arena. To Bernard O'Byrne a brainchild, a terrible beauty.

Bernard is a good administrator and it is a reflection of the self-confidence he has brought to a battered association that the FAI should even be dabbling in video presentations and glossy media packs. The Arena has several things going for it. The capacity is realistic for current needs, for instance. However, the big picture suggests that The Arena is a wasted opportunity with a sliding floor in it. It looks from the outside as if senior people in the FAI and senior people in the Government are locking antlers. Very manly, but with resources so limited we are all going to suffer in the future.

As of last weekend we knew that the Government had secured up to £40 million in private money from JP McManus and friends for an 80,000-seat national stadium. Nothing specific. Bernard O' Byrne was sitting in on the feasibility committee for said national stadium. Ho hum.

As of now, all is changed utterly. Bernard and the FAI have walked away from all that and are busy building their own lodgings. Sort of makes its own statement about Bernard's views on the feasibility of the national stadium.

This is macho silliness. Firstly the FAI plans don't represent entirely plain sailing. Planning objections and appeals alone will put paid to the proposed opening date in autumn 2001. Selling the naming rights to the stadium for £15 million seems ludicrously ambitious. The better US models take in about that much, but the deals invariably include vending rights within the facility. Closer to home, Middlesbrough's Cellnet Stadium pulled in £10 million but look at the name exposure on offer - a nine-month season and daily references in local and national media.

The Irish context? When the All-Ireland hurling championship can be bought by Guinness for less than £1 million a year, tagging your name onto a little-used stadium for £15 million looks pricey. Also, the paucity of guaranteed top sports events makes the 70 corporate boxes a hard sell in a small market. Croke Park has the head-start, the regional network and the guaranteed calendar. The Arena has maybe six internationals including friendlies and games against Malta, Macedonia and co.

And what about the retractable roof and sliding pitch. Novel but poor value. We won't be playing indoor soccer. I don't recall many Irish internationals being called off for flooding or snow. The retractable roof and sliding floor are part of the bid for a slice of the concert action. Are there a dozen acts worldwide who would be economically viable in such a setting?

Where does the project stand in the unlikely event of the FAI's dream of an amalgamation of League of Ireland teams entering a European super-league? If this miracle happened, the capacity is forever limited and the availability for other events is hugely curtailed.

The Arena is a lot of risk being undertaken at a time when other options offer, at the very least, a huge safety net.

A modest proposal. The Government has £40 million from JP McManus and would be prepared to match the £25 million in Lottery funds which went to Croke Park. Take it.

Suppose the FAI and the IRFU pitch in £7.5 million each. That's £80 million. Borrow any balance, or raise it from a stadium lottery ticket campaign. Or put a one per cent lodging tax on hotel occupancy. Now acquire some south city docklands, even north city if the rugby people don't mind. Build a solid 50,000-seater stadium which is friendly to its local environment. For its contributions, allow the FAI to sell its corporate packages (like City West, but costs £57.5 million less). Allow the IRFU to do likewise.

Let both associations put the money they make back into the games they promote. Into the excellent national youth coaching centre idea for instance. Give them the following as anchor tenants: 75 per cent of the corporate box take, the premium-seating take and the stadium advertising revenue. Work out a friendly deal for the concession stands and any parking revenue.

As for the stadium itself. Forget the notion of plonking a facility down on some outlying plot only accessible by car or specially-constructed train line. People in cars don't linger and spend. Just go and look at the gridlock, the paltry stadium revenues and the annual federal tax losses in Giants Stadium, New Jersey if you want proof. So let's walk from town and maybe construct a short looped extension from Tara Street. They tried the 10, 20 miles out of town jobs in the 1970s. They failed. They moved on. The modern facility is downtown or nearby. The best stadiums in the US are in places like Baltimore, Cleveland and Denver. Downtown pedestrian-friendly stadiums acting as catalysts for inner-city development.

Instead of just building a stadium let's get some private partners and build some shops, leisure centres, offices, cinemas, restaurants. Maybe put a national coaching centre, a hotel and a sports museum into the complex. Things which will make money all year round and draw people all year round. The people who flock on the days when the stadium is full are a bonus to the area not what it depends on for survival.

Given that soccer and rugby will be the main events and that the peak season for gigs is summer do we really need both a retractable roof and sliding floor? Why not build so that we have the option of increased capacity in future years.

And if there is ever a full-time professional team as an anchor tenant, let's have a facility which ensures that the benefits trickle down.

It makes sense just now to have heads knocked together. Have the Sports Council or Sports Minister nothing to say? The Arena is a spectacular plan and kudos to all concerned, but now that the standing ovation is over it looks like another missed opportunity for sport in this country. Let's start making sense before we start making stadia.