Belfast ice-hockey supremo's warning to soccer clubs

The Belfast Giants owners have invested £2m in a bid to bring success to the fledgling ice hockey team, it was revealed today.

Managing Director Bob Zellor outlined the massive investment as he warned ailing local soccer clubs must be prepared for a similar undertaking if they are to transform their fortunes.

Mr Zellor told the Assembly’s Culture, Arts and Leisure Committee that the Belfast Giants success has sent ripples across the ice hockey world, to his native North America.

In their first season at the Belfast Odyssey arena the Belfast Giants’ bosses had hoped to attract 85,000 spectators. In fact, 154,000 flocked to see the new team.

By comparison crowd figures at Irish League football fixtures have slumped in recent years, a situation Sports Minister Michael McGimpsey is trying to reverse through his soccer taskforce.

But Mr Zellor insisted there were no easy solutions to the ills afflicting the longer-established game.

He said: "We spent four-and-a-half-years and close to £2m to become an overnight sensation," he said.

"When you look at the question of football, you have to re-establish the brand, then spend a lot of time with some very creative people to find out how you do that."

The Giants’ pulling power since beginning to play at the Odyssey saw the team rocket to the top of the UK ice hockey attendance figures and reach eleventh place among all European teams.

Asked by Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford) how prices could be kept low, Mr Zellor outlined how ticket sales provides only 35% of total revenue for what is an expensive sport to stage.

He was forbidden from revealing the cost of renting the arena, but confirmed it was a five figure sum for each home game.

Another £1m spent on employing players means that the organisation will not come into profit until its third playing year.

Barry McElduff (Sinn Fein, West Tyrone) quizzed him on the "PR disaster" of failing to follow other sports and call off fixtures during the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

Mr Zellor replied that it would have been impossible to rearrange the games and added that the Free Presbyterian’s 50th anniversary celebrations in the Odyssey had also gone ahead.

Despite the furore that decision caused, the Belfast Giants’ boss insisted that his vision of a sporting team straddling Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide has been an unqualified success.

"We have taken immense satisfaction from being seen as helpful to the peace process," he said.