Stadium's fate now in hands of developers

After yet another marathon meeting of the FAI's board of management, the fate of Eircom Park now appears to be firmly in the hands of Davy Hickey Properties, the owners and developers of the Citywest Campus where it is supposed to be built.

The firm looks set to be given the go-ahead to undertake a detailed examination of the association's business plan for the project when the board meets on Friday to receive clarification on some of the points raised over four and a half hours yesterday.

The outcome of that due diligence examination will almost certainly decide one way or the other whether the project will proceed as no other parties have expressed any interest in supporting the scheme financially. The land on which the stadium is to be built has reverted to the company due to the association's failure to start construction work by the end of last year.

Although the company has said that its financial evaluation of the scheme will take between two and three months to complete, senior officials of the association are hopeful that, in the event that they receive a date for the hearing of their Bord Pleanala appeal, the firm will be in a position to give an indication of whether they are interested in pressing ahead with their proposed involvement.

If they are not it appears entirely possible that the FAI would opt not to pursue an appeal which it is estimated would cost them between £300,000 and £500,000.

The possibility of the appeal not going ahead was being played down yesterday by FAI chief executive Bernard O'Byrne. When asked about the prospect of a further three months being added to the FAI's plans he did concede, however, that "the important thing now is that we identify, once and for all, whether this project is going to happen or not".

The attendance at yesterday's meeting, the association's board of directors, were given details of the financing deal that had been worked out between the FAI's negotiating team and representatives of Davy Hickey.

All reportedly acknowledged that the situation regarding the land, which the property company is now free to take back at any point, combined with the weak state of the organisation's finances, had left the FAI in a less than satisfactory position during the talks.

Still, there was a degree of unity among the officers afterwards with one of the project's chief critics, Brendan Menton, arguing that the due diligence "represents the best way forward for the association at this point because finally we are going to see the whole thing evaluated by the commercial sector.

"What we're seeing," he added, "is a way that the whole debate can finally be brought to a logical conclusion."

Later, however, board member John Delaney expressed his continuing frustration with the leadership of the association for their ongoing determination to ignore the possibility of talks with the government regarding the proposed National Stadium. He subsequently revealed that an emergency meeting of the National League's Management Committee would discuss the matter on Thursday. "What is absolutely certain after today is that the dream of a new home for Irish football that is built by and owned by the FAI is dead," he said. "What was being put in front of us in there is what I would describe as a 50-year mortgage on Eircom Park and it seems that if we continue on our present course we are allowing Davy Hickey to call all of the shots."

In fact, it is understood that the deal worked out with Davy Hickey would involve a substantial part of the developers' costs being repaid when the corporate boxes and other premium seats are to be resold in 10 years time. At that point ownership of the stadium would revert to the association, although further, less substantial, payments would be due to the property firm for another 40 years.

Representatives of Davy Hickey made it clear, however, that they will only go ahead with the scheme if a number of strict conditions are met.

The company must be satisfied that the International Management Group (IMG) can raise the u69 £69 million net of commission envisaged in the business plan before construction starts; that the plan's commercial revenue projections are realistic; that the development costs will not exceed the anticipated £104 million; that neither they nor the association could become liable for the proposed £35 million in outside debt; and that the legal and tax structures for the project stand up to scrutiny.

O'Byrne remains confident about the eventual outcome. He said the deal would merely represent "a new direction for us as up until now we had been anticipating a solo run".

Menton, meanwhile, agreed that he would not raise the issue of the National Stadium at Friday's meeting. In the absence of any other serious alternatives to the Davy Hickey deal it is unlikely, however, to remain off the agenda for long.