Kelly’s New York visit to support new stadium bid

GAA PRESIDENT Sean Kelly will visit New York next week to add his support to the Irish community’s fundraising drive for a new Gaelic games’ stadium.

Kelly will fly to New York on May 21 and head straight into an investors' meeting in Manhattan, at which he will underline Croke Park's commitment and backing for the Randall's Island Gaelic Stadium.

New York GAA board president Liam Bermingham said: "The project's still ongoing, very much so. Sean Kelly is coming out here later this month ahead of a fundraising ladder we're going to do as we bring the whole plans back to the public."

Bermingham's predecessor Monty Moloney is spearheading the Randall's Island project, which could result in

a $45 million Gaelic sports' complex in the Big Apple, wholly owned and operated by the GAA.

Moloney launched a huge fundraising drive before Christmas to ensure that 25 acres of Manhattan real estate donated by the City of New York can be turned into the viable, state-of-the- art stadium, with two arenas, bar, restaurant and banqueting facilities.

The centrepiece of the site, on an island nestling under the Triborough Bridge which links Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, will be the two stadiums the main 10,000-seater arena and a second one with a capacity of 3,000 which would be used for other games and training.

Moloney confirmed the visit by Kelly, who will also attend New York's Ulster SHC match with Down on Sunday, May 23, at Gaelic Park in the Bronx, the GAA's current home ground, rented from Manhattan College.

New York president Bermingham said seeing the Randall's Island project through was vital to the long-term survival of the GAA in the city.

"If we don't do it this time we never will. It's basically down to that, it's now or never for us. There have been so many attempts in the past and they have always failed, Land is so expensive here so to be given the land if we don't do it now we never will." he said.

"We have been granted a license by the city, we have the land and it's a matter of developing the funding necessary to do it. At this stage we're looking for the money for the initial phases, basically to get the field, dressing rooms and stands together, and we're talking in the region of $5m," said Bermingham.

Bermingham added that if the money is raised on schedule then New York's championship teams could be playing their first games on Randall's Island in the summer of 2006.

If the project comes to fruition, the New York GAA confidently predict a role for the Randall Island's Gaelic Stadium as part of any successful bid by the city for the 2012 Olympic Games.

"The Olympic bid works very well for us because if the city is successful when the decision is made in 2005, then the organisers are looking for venues to play field sports. It is centrally located and it does very much figure into the city's reckoning," said Bermingham.