Bill O’Leary: Cobh Ramblers was in a difficult place, now it is in a great place

FC32, an international group of experienced sports executives, completed their takeover of the Rams on Monday.

NEW ERA: Cobh Ramblers Chairman Bill O'Leary has welcome the takeover by FC32.

Just over 10 years ago, Cobh Ramblers were back in the League of Ireland and trying to find their way after facing extinction over crippling debts following a brief stint in the top flight.

Now, the East-Cork side is celebrating a takeover by FC32, an international group of experienced sports executives that will see them fall into a multi-club model which includes Austrian side SKN St. Pölten.

To Bill O’Leary, this is the accumulation of a long process that they hope will lead to great things at St Colman’s Park.

“We’ve worked extremely hard here – we really put our turrets into a wheel and gave everything we had,” he said.

“It is a testimony to that and that effort. Great things can be achieved by people with a common goal that proceed with that. Without over stating that I would say, the club has turned around. It was in a difficult enough place and now it is in a great place.

“All we are custodians and for all of us, it was to work hard and put the club in a better place and I think we achieved that.”

Everything was set in motion with an appeal for investment in 2022 and that led to an EGM with a number of interested parties earlier this year.

“It has been an 18-month to a year process,” added O’Leary.

“We’ve been engaging with five or six interested parties globally and that was a really positive sign. They liked the way we run the club and they liked the way we don’t have accumulated debt.

"We got on well with them personally and they like the whole culture of the club. They see value here.

“It is great and we are thrilled. I think that the members are delighted and the board are delighted. We obviously had to go through membership voting. Essentially, the board recommended it to the members and the members voted on it. They actually voted on their preferred deal. There were a number of different deals.”

At the centre of this was FC32, a group focused on building a player-first platform through the acquisition of clubs around the world.

A theme has been youth development, something which has underlined Cobh’s recent season with their clear pathway from academy to first team.

This was on show for all to see when six members of their U20s were involved in a league game with Finn Harps at St Colman’s Park last June.

FC32 hope to build on this while working towards a women’s team entering the Premier Division in 2026.

“The player pathway, we have excellent sports pathway folks, sports data, sports data science guys,” insists O’Leary.

“The best in class, very high level sports performance. They bring a very high level sports performance. Almost as high as you can go. They are going to bring that into the way we play, train, how we identify talent, how we bring our players through the ages, our playing style. Everything is up for grabs in that regard.

“Then it is about protecting our value. Historically speaking, we’ve been forced to get rid of players for very low money. Now we are in a situation where we can protect our players that little bit better.

"There is going to be a number of clubs in the group so there is an opportunity for clubs to move around between the group. It is all positive.”