FAI to get £45m in Government offer to move to Stadium Ireland

Leading football officials from around the country will today receive details of the package offered by the Government to the FAI in return for the association abandoning Eircom Park and opting instead to become tenants at the proposed Stadium Ireland.

The key points involve the provision of £45 million in cash funding to the association over three years, the availability of the stadium on more favourable terms than are currently enjoyed at Lansdowne Road and a comprehensive programme of additional grants to aid the development of the game, particularly in disadvantaged areas.

Central to the proposal is the offer of £15 million a year for the next three years. The plan is that when the stadium opens for business and the FAI attempts to sell the corporate boxes and premium seats for its international games some of this funding, believed to be around £16 million, would be repaid. Any additional funds raised above that would be the FAI's to keep.

On that basis, with almost 100 boxes and roughly 10,000 premium seats, the FAI could raise over £50 million gross. That, however, assumes that everything would be sold at prices comparable to those envisaged at Eircom Park and even then that figure would be subject to commission which would be paid to the selling agents.

In the case of Eircom Park, IMG were expected to receive roughly a third of gross revenue though that figure was criticised as being high by those who have long favoured an alternative to the Citywest development.

Taking these figures as a rough guide and assuming something approaching 100 per cent sales, the FAI would be expected to pay roughly £17 million in commission and £16 million back to the Government, leaving it with capital figure of approximately £17 million to add to the £45 million of the original grant aid it retained.

On the costs of the stadium, it is believed that the industry standard rental of 15 per cent of ticket revenue is not far off the figure being sought by the management of Stadium Ireland. This is in line with the arrangements between the FAI and IRFU at present but as part of that deal additional payments comprising a percentage of television and advertising revenue are also made. These would not be sought by the Government.

The FAI could also benefit if the IRFU confirm their intention to play their international games at the new stadium and the GAA agree to use the facility for some of their matches.

Government officials have apparently indicated that, given that the break-even figure for the stadium is anticipated to be six events a year attracting 40,000 or more, a combination of events achieving significantly more than the required attendances would result in a scaling back of the percentage payment on ticket revenues.

On the third area contained in the offer document, that of grant aid to the game as a whole, proponents of the deal continue to maintain that all reasonable, well costed and properly put together grant applications could expect to be "sympathetically" treated.

The Government has said that it will match pound for pound all programmes and developments aimed at promoting the game in disadvantaged areas while it will provide for one pound for every two pounds spent in other sectors.

It is here that the £45 million in advance funding is supposed to be crucial as the expectation would be that the association could assist clubs, leagues and member associations in putting up their side of the funds which the Government would then match or add to.

The document will be made public this afternoon. The first group to formally discuss it will be representatives of the National League's clubs who will meet for a specially convened session tomorrow night. After that the matter could be decided on Friday when both decision-making bodies will vote on whether to accept the proposals of to stick with Eircom Park.

Before that, the association's finance committee will meet today to consider the weekend's newspaper reports regarding Bernard O'Byrne's private usage of his credit card. The chief executive has insisted that he has done nothing improper and, while he was not contactable yesterday, it is believed that the matter may be deferred, possibly with a sub-committee being appointed to look into the precise circumstances of what transpired.