Omar

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Forked Tongues!

In the 'good old' western films the Indians said that the white men spoke with 'forked tongues', which when translated meant you couldn't believe a word they said. Linfield football club I believe speak with forked tongues. Last year they 'allegedly' received £800,000 pounds from the I.F.A. for the use of Windsor Park for Internationals and cup finals etc. I say 'allegedly' as that is the fee they're admitting to, but in my limited experience, what is quoted officially and what is actually received, could have a difference of 20% more than claimed, which would make that a round fee of a million pounds. All of a sudden they seem prepared to give that income up, re-negotiate their terms which is contracted to run for another 100 odd years, the mind boggles.
The first whimper we heard was that Linfield would in effect, allow (they are bloody generous aren't they), the I.F.A. to develop the stadium (which lets face it is a disaster waiting to happen),into a 24,000 seater stadia and take a reduced fee for games. How much this fee was to be reduced was never specified, but I'd lay good odds it was by a very small percentage. Now they have stated that ownership of the stadium must remain with them. Do they think we all came down the Lagan in a banana boat? They want the I.F.A. and the Government to spend Millions developing the ground, which they will still retain ownership of. I realise Raymond Kennedy is a bit 'soft' in the head (he is a Coleraine board member after all), but even he would surely not be daft enough to agree to this ludicrous suggestion. The only sensible way forward is really to build a new Stadium, but if that's not going to happen and apparently it isn't, then ownership of the ground should pass to the I.F.A. with Linfield who would be putting nothing into the deal being allowed use of the ground for domestic games for a period of 20 years and thereafter pay a reasonable rent for the use of the facility. This is the way forward, Linfield may not like it, but anything other than this is 'anarchy'!