Sporting Fingal project criticised by Sinn Féin

The Blanchardstown branch of Sinn Féin has strongly criticised the launch of the new Sporting Fingal soccer club as an exercise in “unacceptable grandiose corporate branding that will see millions of council money being spent on a dream team, while local clubs beg and borrow to make ends meet.” Party activists held a protest outside Corduff Sports Centre at the official launch of the new club recently.

Cllr. Paul Donnelly called on council officials “to re-evaluate their proposal and concentrate on providing basic facilities for the hundreds of soccer teams rather than grandiose projects.”

He then listed off a string of inadequacies across Dublin 15 among soccer clubs. “In Ladyswell Park the local club does not have goalposts. In Littlepace, Clonee United have extremely limited access to their own pitches. Most of our parks in Dublin 15 - Corduff, Parslickstown, Dromheath, Littlepace, Hartstown - have no club house or changing room with children changing in cars or old containers with no showers or cleaning facilities. This is the reality of soccer in Dublin 15. What the council should be doing is sitting down with these clubs to negotiate how these facilities can be provided and managed.”

Cllr. Donnelly also questioned the viability of the new club and suggested that such a club could not be catapulted to broad popularity in the locality quickly. Taking the example of two of the giants of the European game, Bayern Munich and Manchester United, he said that such clubs “did not appear overnight but have long proud histories and grew organically, increasing their fan-base as they did so.”

He said that “it is highly unlikely that Sporting Fingal will have an instant fan-base who will follow it through thick and thin which is essential for the economic survival of any club. Most of the League of Ireland clubs are in financial jeopardy and it is highly questionable if this is the best use of council money.”

According to Cllr. Donnelly, “the main selling point to local clubs is the training academy and while this is positive it is not reliant on having a multi-million euro stadium or team. It would work in its own right and does not require massive funding for a club to justify it.

While the idea of a training academy is positive, the reality is that Sporting Fingal will have to take the best players from all the local clubs and this will be detrimental to local clubs in the long-term. A number of clubs have contacted me to express concern, but are afraid to speak out publicly in case their funding is put under threat."

 

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