Takeover falls by the wayside as United face final home tie of season

GALWAY United play their final home game of a hugely disappointing season this Friday when they welcome Wexford FC to Eamonn Deacy Park (7.45pm).

A side that many people suggested was too good to be relegated suffered that exact fate at the end of last season, with that prediction been equally as wide of the mark as the one that United would bounce straight back at the first time of asking.

Instead, they are set to record their worst league finish in 15 seasons, guaranteed to finish 6th in the league no matter how they fare tonight, or on Saturday week when they conclude the season with a game against Shelbourne in Tolka Park.

Those two games are set to see Alan Murphy continue his policy of blooding young players as the club looks to the future, a future that does not look like including an investment or input from any Saudi business group.

Back in June, the club was in talks with two Saudi businessmen with a view to them taking a controlling interest in the club. The talks had gone as far as seeing two representatives of United travelling to the Middle East to meet the proposed investors, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside.

“As far as the Saudi takeover, the line I have been given is that it has gone cold. I don’t know what that really means, but gone cold to me suggests it is dead,” said Murphy when asked for an update on the proposed takeover.

It appears that the deal fell through as the club undertook a due diligence process – apparently, members of the Galway United Friends Co-operative were told at the supporters’ group AGM last month that phone calls to the Saudi group had simply gone unanswered all of a sudden.

If that is the case, it sits neatly in the narrative of a shambolic season for the club, which had started so promising with a 4-1 win at home to Athlone Town. However, United dropped valuable points in those early stages, surrendering leads away to both UCD and Drogheda United, and that failure to get positive results against the other sides in the chase for promotion eventually proved United’s undoing.

In the 14 games against the five sides above them, United have won just once – a season-best performance seeing them record a 2-0 win at home to UCD. A haul of seven points from a possible 42 is nowhere near good enough for a side to challenge for promotion.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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