Eircom Park cancelled

The much troubled Eircom Park National Stadium project has dramatically collapsed with the FAI opting to take a tenancy at the Irish Government’s own Stadium Ireland scheme. The Eircom Park project had been in the balance for several months with wrangling over the scheme’s spiralling costs dividing the project’s hierarchy. Perhaps the death knell for Eircom came when the FAI chief executive Bernard O’Byrne, the driving force behind the new stadium was forced to resign after his credit card expenditure was subject of investigation. The remainder of the FAI committee voted in favour of the government’s scheme which will see the FAI gain a grant over three years, of £45 million with another grant of £17 million being filtered down to League of Ireland clubs for ground improvements. The Stadium Ireland scheme is due to be completed for the 2005-06 season with both the national football and rugby teams moving in. Meanwhile Mick McCarthy’s men will continue to share Lansdowne Road with their rugby counterparts.

Croke Park still closed to Football

The Irish parliament was recently thrown into uproar when Bertie Ahern, the Prime Minister, came under attack over government funding for the planned £IR350m national sports stadium. Controversy over the stadium, popularly nick-named the "Bertie Bowl", was triggered by the surprise announcement that the government was giving £IR60m to the rival Croke Park ground, home of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The promise of a grant came on the eve of GAA's annual congress, at which delegates had been expected to vote to lift one the GAA's most cherished shibboleths - a ban on so-called "foreign" games such as football and rugby. Because of the ban, the 70,000 capacity stadium at Croke Park is unused from October to March, although Ireland's football team has no home ground, and rugby's Lansdowne Road stadium has little room for expansion. Lifting the ban was seen by reformers in the GAA as a way to generate badly needed revenues. But following Mr Ahern's offer of funds, the GAA voted against lifting its ban. The move was widely seen as an attempt to baulk efforts to use Croke Park for football, thus clearing the way for the government funded new national stadium.

WHERE WILL THE £17 MILLION GO?