Flood looks to the future

Shelbourne have confirmed a major reorganisation of the ownership and administration of the club during which Finbarr Flood will replace Gary Brown as chairman and the Donnelly family will cease to have anything other than an honorary involvement.

As part of the mechanism established to facilitate the family, who are currently the effective owners of both the club and its ground, Tolka Park, a new company and board will be established with details of it composition due to be announced over the coming weeks.

Outgoing chairman Brown strenuously denied reports that the changes were part of a "boardroom upheaval" at the club, insisting that the Donnellys' departure was the final stage in their phased withdrawal while his own was due to greatly increased business and family commitments.

Flood, meanwhile, said that suggestions that there was a financial crisis at the club were also misguided. "Making ends meet is a struggle here just as I'm sure that is a struggle at every club in the country but I can assure you that I wouldn't have agreed to return to this position if there were real difficulties behind the scenes," he said.

Having established itself as an organisation capable of generating turnover in excess of £1 million per annum and competing at the lower levels of European competition in recent years, Flood said that the club was now looking at "taking things to the next level over the next three seasons". This, he said, would involve progressing to the stage Shelbourne could qualify for the Champions League group stages.

"The three-year timescale isn't written in stone," he added. "If we felt that we were making real progress and on the verge of a major breakthrough then clearly we would keep going but the fact is that the current level of operation whereby we need £1 million each year to support a full-time set-up, take £200,000 at the gate and then have to battle to make up the shortfall, looks unsustainable in the long term.

"If it turns out that we can not take it to the next level then we will have to fundamentally review where we are going and I don't think that we will be the only club in that position."