Transfer cash glitch puts City deal in the balance

THE takeover of Cork City could go down to the wire, with complications arising out of recent transfer deals apparently posing last-minute problems for the consortium which has made an offer to buy the club.

Time is now of the essence as Monday sees the club facing both a High Court winding-up order over unpaid tax and the final decision on club licenses for the new League of Ireland season.

Some €150,000 in total is due to Cork City from the sale, last November, of Kevin Long to Burnley and, via an option to cash in the sell-on clause, from the transfer which took David Meyler to Sunderland in 2008.

However, it’s understood that, in what are disputed circumstances, those monies have not yet been received by the debt-ridden club and, according to sources close to the negotiations, the shortfall created could threaten the successful conclusion of the proposed takeover.

Current owner Tom Coughlan had earlier this week charged that the FAI were holding up the release to Cork of the €100,000 due from the Kevin Long deal, money which he said was earmarked to help clear the debt of €130,000 believed to be owed to the Revenue Commissioners.

Responding, an FAI spokesman replied: “The money is not being held by the FAI. We understand that money has been paid by Burnley to the English FA and is being processed, like all international transfers, through FIFA’s Transfer Matching System.”

Football’s world governing body describes TMS as an initiative designed to control and regulate player transfers “in which all data relevant to a transfer must be entered into a web-based tool, thus ensuring full transparency”.

Thursday night seemed to herald a breakthrough for City when it was announced that a new consortium of businessmen, Peter Gray and Michael O’ Connell, with the backing of the supporters’ group FORAS, were making an offer to buy the club from Tom Coughlan. But yesterday the consortium said that it was still awaiting a response from Cork City to their offer.

Also yesterday, Jim McCarthy, director of the Quintas Group, who are facilitating the bid, turned down an offer from the current owners to become interim chairman in place of Coughlan, who had resigned from that position after failing in a High Court bid to overturn a 12-month FAI ban for bringing the game into disrepute.

In a statement, the Quintas Group said: “Jim’s role in this process has been to bring together a consortium of local businessmen to take over the running of Cork City FC and to bring stability to the club. Quintas confirms that Jim McCarthy has turned down the chairmanship offered as it would be in conflict with the role he is currently fulfilling for the consortium that has lodged a bid to take control of Cork City FC.

“Peter Gray, a member of the consortium, was also offered a seat on the board of Cork City FC.

“He has turned down this offer as it would be inappropriate given his involvement in the consortium looking to take over the club.”

Yesterday, Coughlan said that he was still hopeful that a deal would go through to save the club but, as of now, it seems that efforts to hammer out a deal could continue right up to Monday’s deadline.