The Football Association of Ireland's plans for a 45,000-seat stadium in Citywest were on the verge of collapse last night following a decision by the FAI board to retain a previously agreed £3 million cap on expenditure on the project.
While the organisation's chief executive, Mr Bernard O'Byrne, insisted after the meeting he was happy the Eircom Park scheme remained on course, the fact that £3 million has already been spent means that there are no longer any funds with which to fight a planning process which is expected to last well into next year.
Currently the FAI is waiting for a decision from South Dublin County Council on planning permission for the scheme which, when it was launched 18 months ago, had an estimated price tag of £82 million. The expectation has always been, however, that there would then be an appeal to An Bord Pleanala, either by the association or by opponents of the scheme.
Several of those present at yesterday's meeting in at the FAI's headquarters in Merrion Square said afterwards the decision to cap spending on the scheme had effectively killed off any hope of winning an appeal process.
In an official statement issued last night, the association claimed that it had been decided to proceed with the project. Mr O'Byrne subsequently endorsed this interpretation of events, telling The Irish Times that "what we have decided to do is to go ahead and have a further review after the decision on planning permission has been made".
That view was seriously at odds with the opinions expressed by several of his critics, who suggested that there would be no funding for any further part of the planning process, effectively leaving the project, as one board member put it "dead in the water".
A proposal to allow the scheme to go to planning was endorsed by the meeting by 16 votes to two. A later proposal to open talks with the Government immediately about sharing the proposed 80,000 capacity Stadium Ireland at Abbotstown was defeated.
