Roy exit would net City a €500,000 plus windfall

CORK CITY are in line to pocket €500,000 and then cash in on follow-on bonuses should Roy O’Donovan’s proposed transfer to Fulham go ahead this week.

If O’Donovan gains full international honours for the Republic of Ireland, the Leesiders are likely to make more from a lucrative deal with the south London club.

News on O’Donovan’s expected cross channel transfer was due yesterday afternoon, but Cork City weren’t in contact with Fulham.

Fulham are currently in Hong Kong for a tournament and City boss, Damien Richardson, said that because of the time difference (Hong Kong is 11 hours ahead) it was prudent to allow the Craven Cottage management adjust to Asian time after they touched down on Sunday for the Barclays Asia Trophy 2007.

Sanchez appears keen to sign O’Donovan and, should the Corkman move to London, it will bring the number of Irish players signed by the former Northern Ireland boss to five this summer. David Healy, Aaron Hughes, Chris Baird and Steven Davis (all Northern Ireland) signed on the dotted lines for the Cottagers during a summer of high spending for Sanchez.

Meanwhile, Richardson said he was disappointed by Drogheda United’s negative tactics in Sunday’s 0-0 draw. The Drogs opted to defend for the full 90 minutes and stifled Cork’s midfield. Despite City’s willingness to play, Paul Doolin’s men seemed content to sit back and absorb pressure.

“The reality is you saw that Drogheda will be very difficult to beat, but there are also games that they won’t win. Their complete blanket negativity suggests to me they’re more concerned with not losing than winning. The two previous games they scored goals in the last minute to win both. You can’t keep doing that. They’re hard to score and play against. They’re league leaders, but they should be showing more responsibility with their performances.”

The Cork boss is hopeful Liam Kearney and O’Donovan will be fit to play St Patrick’s Athletic at Richmond Park on Friday.

O’Donovan aggravated his hamstring in the pre-match warm-up on Sunday, while Kearney (hamstring) was forced to sit and watch from the Donie Forde Stand. The news on another hamstring victim, John O’Flynn, is not so good — the injury-jinxed striker is likely to miss Friday evening’s clash that City need to win to remain in title contention.

“Liam and Roy have made good improvements. I have my fingers crossed in relation to Friday with both of them,” said Richardson, “We won’t know with John until Tuesday because it only happened yesterday and it takes 48 hours to discover the extent of an injuy of that type of hamstring. He might make Friday but it might be pushing it a little bit.”