President Higgins helps broker soccer deal

The President of Ireland is believed to have played an instrumental part in progressing the establishment of a single senior football club to represent the city and county in the League of Ireland next season.

President Michael D Higgins is understood to have been part of an FAI delegation that met with representatives of the Comer Group in Dublin last Friday prior to the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup qualifier with Sweden in a bid to secure funding for the newly established Galway FC, which is set to apply to the FAI for a licence to participate in the 2014 season.

The Comer Group has confirmed it will financially back the new venture, and details on the exact deal will be announced in the coming weeks.

The confirmation of the new club – which was exclusively revealed on our Facebook page on Wednesday afternoon – is the culmination of a year of talks between what the FAI has described as the four main stakeholders in the game locally: the Galway FA, The Galway United Supporters’ Trust, Mervue United and Salthill Devon.

It was confirmed on Wednesday that the new club is to be run by a nine-person board, with two representatives from each of the four stakeholders, under the chairmanship of Bernie O’Connell, a former secretary of Galway United.

Mr O’Connell had initially been appointed by the FAI to chair initial talks on forming a single club in the wake of the Ned O’Connor report on the state of football in Galway. As talks progressed, he was ratified by all parties to continue to act as chairperson of the working group.

 That O’Connor report, which was commissioned by the FAI, recommended that the best interests of football in the city and county would be served by the formation of a new single club, with the input of the four named stakeholders.

“The situation has been a delicate one, a lot of people have given up a lot of things to get to this stage, and they all deserve great credit for that, it shows the genuine passion there is for a strong team in Galway,” Mr O’Connell told the Galway City Tribune yesterday.

 Mr O’Connell said the process of appointing a manager will get underway very soon, saying it would be a key appointment for the new club.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.