Northern Ireland Stadium News

Despite revelations that Edwin Poots’s Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure has spent nearly £3.5 million on promoting a new stadium in his back yard, the press are hinting that the white elephant is edging ever-nearer to it’s ultimate demise after the DCAL Permanent Secretary Paul Sweeney refused to endorse the plans.

According to the Sunday Life, “The absence of support from key civil servants in the departments principally involved in the project … is likely to put the final nail in its coffin.”

Finance Minister Peter Robinson is due to make a recommendation to the Executive before he takes over the position of First Minister later this month, however he has recently hinted that the Maze could be redeveloped through other means that wouldn’t require the construction of a national stadium, suggesting he may already have a decision in mind.

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Head of the Strategic Investment Board and Head Cheerleader for the Maze, Tony Whitehead, has resigned.  Some are heralding this as confirmation that, following the reshuffle of the DUP’s leadership and executive team, the proposals to build a stadium at the Maze have “collapsed”.

Coming shortly after the announcement that there will be no olympic football at the Maze, even if plans for a stadium do go ahead, there is certainly a feeling that the Maze is not the done deal we were told it was over 3 years ago.

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Last week Ian Paisley Jr. (Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister) visited Nationals Park, “a key social and economic regeneration project in Washington DC” centred around the building of a new baseball stadium. The stadium is being built as the new home for the Washington Nationals baseball team and will be the focus of a regeneration effort encompassing business, residential and retail projects. You can see where he’s going with this, right?

His visit serves to highlight the enormous benefits to the economy the building of a new stadium can bring in terms of regeneration etc.

“It is clear that this site will also become not only a thriving economic platform for small and minority business but a social centre for the local community.”
Ian Paisley Jr, OFMDFM Junior Minister

Hopefully while he was there he’ll have taken note that the site of Nationals Park is approximately one mile from the US Capitol buildings, not in a field 10 miles outside the city. There isn’t much of a community to use the Maze stadium as a “social centre” since there’s not a built-up area around for miles!

Apparently Magilligan prison is crumbling and the government is discussing where a replacement might be built. 

Magilligan is to be replaced with a new £150m 1,000 cell jail. Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Chairman, Sir Patrick Cormack, said that a senior prison official told the committee one of the essential criteria was the new jail was within 30 miles of Belfast.

Wait a minute… isn’t there a site in that area that is capable of holding a prison.  If memory serves correctly there used to be a prison somewhere within 30 miles of Belfast on a site that is currently vacant.

It’s an obvious solution I know, but bare with me.  What’s to say we go ahead and build the prison on the prison site and put the national stadium somewhere where people will actually be able to get to it?

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Ulster rugby star Trevor Ringland, previously a backer of the plans for a stadium at the old Maze site has urged the devolved executive not to rush the decision. The Sunday Life reported that the former Ireland and Lions winger has reconsidered his support for the Maze proposals.

“As someone who has previously backed it, I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be there but I am willing to concede that it is not clear cut. The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff & Croke in Dublin are obvious examples of grounds near the centre of populations that have created fantastic atmospheres. I do not want a white elephant built and that is why I would like to see a major, open and honest debate on the location. It is what is right for the people of Northern Ireland that counts.”

Trevor Ringland

It’s not surprising that Ringland was originally in support of the Maze. There are a large number of people who were effectively caught up in fanciful talk about UEFA cup finals (which will not happen due to UEFA requirements) and Olympic football (before people realised that they’d never sell 40,000 tickets for Iran vs Qatar). The NIO press office has done a wonderful job of propaganda but the holes have begun to appear and are growing every day.

There is enormous opposition to the Maze stadium, but with the devolved executive dominated by the DUP and Sinn Fein (the one party to openly back the plans), and the DUP’s Lisburn-centric leadership backing the plans (and running DCAL, the ministry responsible for sports), there is a danger that our all-knowing politicians will decide that they know more about sport than players and fans.

Register your opposition now - sign the petition to build the stadium in Belfast.

In an unlikely turn of events Secretary of State Peter Hain has stated his belief that showpiece sporting events should be held in city centres, because “there’s a wonderful atmosphere of people milling around the streets, which become pedestrianised, coming in and out of pubs and restaurants and cafes and flooding into the ground.” He went on to say that there’s a much greater sense of occasion when events take place in a City Centre than they will, for example, at the new Wembley, because the new London stadium is being built in a suburb.

If Peter Hain’s colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office would care to check, they’d find that that’s exactly what we’ve been arguing from the start! Our Secretary of State believes that the benefits of a city-centre location have made the Millennium Stadium “probably one of the best in the world” and there is no reason why what applies to Wales shouldn’t apply to Northern Ireland.

Therefore, StadiumForBelfast urges Peter Hain, as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in the strongest possible terms, to make his view clear to the muppets in the NIO who are insisting on building Northern Ireland’s new stadium not in a suburb, but in a field miles away from the nearest suburb!

Peter Hain: Sign Our Petition - support a stadium in Belfast!

A story has emerged today that confirms what football fans have been saying for a long time. The government is happily bribing and blackmailing the IFA into supporting the white elephant at the Maze. 

It’s been reported that the IFA will be offered £2million to cover the costs of repairing Windsor Park so it is fit to stage internationals in the short-term future, and maybe even a payoff to help cover the costs of breaking the 80 year lease with Linfield for home internationals, but only on the condition that they commit finally and publicly to the Maze project, regardless of what their fans actually want.

The government are running scared. They know the Belfast proposals are viable and they’ve siezed on the storm damage to Windsor Park as ammunition for the gun they are now holding to football’s head.  Democracy in action.

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An online poll of Ulster Rugby fans has shown that a whopping 82% of Rugby fans reject the Maze stadium. According to a poll on the “Ulternative Alster” fansite, 2% supported a move to the Maze, 16% supported playing only larger games at the Maze and 67% in favour of a new stadium in Belfast.

At the same time, a leading a senior individual in the tourism industry has said that the government plans for a stadium at the Maze amount to a “Grave Mistake” and that economically it would make more sense to find a site in Belfast where it could make use of existing infrastructure. His comments follow those of Alan Clarke, Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Tourist Board who last year said “Large numbers of the tourism industry support the view that the infrastructure in central Belfast is capable of supporting the likely footfall of a new stadium and will therefore realise the project’s full economic and tourism potential.”

Football fans don’t want it, rugby fans don’t want it and the tourist industry don’t want it. Stop the white elephant and build the stadium in Belfast. Sign our petition today!

The Amalgamation of Northern Ireland Supporters’ Clubsand Belfast City Council are to host a debate on the national stadium issue in the Waterfront Hall on 25th January. Councillor Bob Stoker (Community & Recreation committee chairman) will be representing Belfast City Council, Gary McAllister (press officer) the Amalgamation of NISCs and Michael Smyth as an lecturer on Economics from the University of Ulster.

The Political Development has been invited to take part and the Maze Consultation Panel have been asked to nominate a representative as well to ensure a balanced panel. The Maze Consultation Panel’s chairman Edwin Poots (whose DUP party colleague Jeffrey Donaldson illustrated many politicians’ understanding of the situation perfectly when he dismissed the argument as a Belfast vs Lisburn issue and accused Northern Ireland football fans, overwhelmingly opposed to the Maze plans, of sectarianism at a council meeting in Lisburn) has already declined the invitation and the vice-chair Paul Butler (Sinn Fein) said he was unaware of any such invitation.
The Amalgamation has already made clear its opposition to the Maze plans due to a large number of different concerns through protests and press announcements and are in the process of establishing a website at NoToTheMaze.com

Although it’s being called a public debate please be aware that, because of demand, attendance is by invitation only. Invitations can be requested by emailing the Amalgamation of NISCs.

Stop the madness. Stop the white elephant. Sign the Stadium For Belfast petition.

Belfast City Council have officially selected Ormeau Park as the site for the proposed Belfast stadium. Three interested developers have now presented detailed plans to the council, all of which are focused on the park in the south of the city.

Just as the Belfast stadium project is ploughing ahead, with world class developers (including the company behind the Emirates Stadium) presenting their ideas, concerns are being raised over the government’s commitment to the Maze project. Belfast City Council are still pursuing the NIO minister with responsibility for the Maze plans, David Hanson, in an effort to have the business plan for the Maze released. However, despite the stadium’s planned cost to the taxpayer of at least £85 million, the minister is still refusing to release the business plan.

Meanwhile, Lagan Valley politicians are worried that a new roads proposal indicates the government are not as committed to the Maze plans as it first appeared, with the proposed new A1 link road bypassing the area altogether.

Time to stop the madness. Sign the petition.