LEAGUE OF IRELAND PREMIER DIVISION:DROGHEDA UNITED became the latest League of Ireland club to run into serious financial trouble yesterday when its chairman, Vincent Hoey, told the players there would not be enough money to pay their wages for the rest of the season.
It had been widely known that United were experiencing difficulties of late, in part because of repeated delays to the club's plan to relocate to a new, purpose-built stadium on the outskirts of the town.
Apparently the collapse of talks aimed at securing new investment brought matters to a head, though, and the players have been told that after gate receipts from tonight's game against Bohemians and Monday's Setanta Sports Cup semi-final against Glentoran are distributed amongst the squad, there will not, as things stand, be any more money available.
Hoey is said to have expressed the hope new investment can still be secured over the coming weeks, but the recent collapse of a second attempt to secure land and planning permission required to advance long-running relocation plans would appear to leave the club in serious difficulties for the present.
FAI chief executive John Delaney is believed to have played a very active role in attempts over the last few weeks to secure the new funding but the association is now left with a situation in which more than a third of the League of Ireland's clubs, including five from the top flight, have fallen behind with players wages, enforced dramatic pay cuts on squad members or simply declared that they can no longer meet their commitments.
Sources close to Drogheda United, where around €12 million is said to have been spent over the last four years, denied yesterday that the club will follow Cork City into examinership but said that some "breathing space" is required while plans are formalised to pursue a third site for the proposed-built stadium.
United is believed to have a weekly wage bill of around €40,000 per week and with a capacity of less than 2,000 (due to safety restrictions), the two remaining games combined would not be expected to gross that much.
The extent of the growing problems at the club had been highlighted over the past few days by a dispute with Bohemians over tickets for tonight's league game. With the Dubliners potentially in a position to clinch their 10th championship title, they had initially sought 1,000 tickets for the game.
Drogheda United, however, owe Bohemians almost €10,000, the unpaid portion of the cost of hiring Dalymount Park for the Champions League qualifying games against Levadia Tallinn and Dynamo Kiev, and the club was unwilling to supply the tickets without payment in advance, apparently for fear that Bohemians would simply take their money out of the cash raised.
In the end, after protracted negotiations and the intervention of both league and FAI officials, 400 tickets were advanced and these quickly sold out.
In a statement issued by the league yesterday, Bohemians fans who do not have tickets for the game were advised against travelling on the basis that no further tickets would be available for purchase by them at the ground.
In common with the other clubs to have run into trouble in recent weeks, United will have to either clear their debts to other parties involved in the game - players, other clubs, etc - or reach an agreement with regard to repayment by November 30th.
Failure to get their finances in order by that date would make them ineligible to receive the licence they need to compete next year.
A decision in relation to the proposals submitted by the examiner to Cork City, meanwhile, is due to be delivered in the middle of next week.
The Revenue Commissioners have expressed their opposition to a scheme which provides for the payment of 15 cent in the euro to preferential creditors and 7.5 cent in the euro to unsecured creditors but the High Court could still approve the scheme, thereby paving the way for a takeover of the club by consortium led by local hotelier and developer Tom Coughlan.
