With question marks over both the Maze plans and the future use of Windsor Park for international football, Kennedy said that the Irish FA would go along with any of the Belfast plans. His comments have been seen by some as a rebuke to the IFA’s Cheif Executive, Howard Wells, who has consistently backed the Maze plans and is rumoured to be seeking employment elsewhere.

“Beggars can’t be choosers. I want a stadium to play football matches and I want them in Northern Ireland, not anywhere else.

Belfast City Council have come up with five sites and I would take any one of them.”

Raymond Kennedy, Irish FA President

He also said that the Irish FA will be meeting with Linfield football club and the government to discuss the disputed contract that, on the surface, seems to tie the Irish FA to playing international football matches at Windsor Park for another 80 years.

“We have to look at where we are going to play our games in the short-term and that has to be a refurbishment at Windsor Park.

We’ll be meeting the government shortly and if that short-term agreement with them comes to pass then maybe we’ll look at a long-term solution.

I know Linfield have plans for a longer term solution - I don’t know whether we can buy into that or not.”

Raymond Kennedy, Irish FA President

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.

The paper also pointed out that senior civil servants had confirmed that adding the extra 8,500 seats, which would only be used once a year but were considered necessary to make GAA’s involvement worth their while, had doubled the estimated costs of the Maze plans at the same time as helping to alienate rugby and football fans worried about the impact a half-to-three-quarters-empty stadium would have on the atmosphere.

“To spend at least double the revenue just to insert an extra 8,500 seats in the plan doesn’t make financial sense. Even a 30,000 seater stadium raises the essential question of what it is going to be used for and how often it is going to be used.

Ulster rugby has indicated plans to refurbish Ravenhill. Is it going to do that and then leave it unused to play at the Maze? The 38,500 seater stadium isn’t economically viable and there are major financial questions about building a 30,000 stadium there.

Overall the Maze Stadium proposal doesn’t stack up economically and without it the original business plan for the redevelopment of the site isn’t viable either,”

Sunday Life, quoting a “senior civil servant”

Cllr Bob Stoker, chair of BCC’s Parks and Leisure committee said a comprehensive case has now been made for a stadium based in the city and that while some councillors had site-specific questions, these would be answered before the council decide on their preferred location in the next couple of months.

With increasing rumours that the Maze plans are set to be scrapped, Councillor Stoker’s committee couldn’t have picked a better time to hand this report to the Executive who must now be considering other options.  Not only this, but last week the Amalgamation of Official Northern Ireland  Supporters Clubs released a highly critical analysis of the government-commissioned PwC report released earlier this year.

Links:

• Potential Sites
• PwC Report
• AONISC Response to PwC Report

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.

Add your voice to the chorus and sign the petition.

We were told earlier this year that a business case would be forthcoming in the Autumn and then that it would be with the Finance Minister Peter Robinson in December. Instead all we’ve seen are attempts by the Minister to use his comittee for cheap publicity stunts, in what the members of that committee said amounted to an “abuse of the democratic process.”

With the Northern Ireland Executive’s budget announced today there’s still no sign of this famed business case. All DCAL are saying is that the business case is “still being considered” and that they don’t know when it will be ready.

As you can probably guess, StadiumForBelfast has suspicions that DCAL have simply realised that the business case is simply unworkable and, unprepared to admit defeat, are working away desperately trying to ’sex up’ their dossier. Surely they will surprise us all and those issues were all in our imaginations (and yours). Even if they don’t, sure transport, atmosphere, economics and of course the sporting experience don’t really matter anyway.

Time to stop the madness. Sign the petition.

A meeting of the committee was called for the architects and consultants to show off some pretty pictures (artist’s impressions) of what a new stadium could look like and then turn them over to the media to circulate. Members of the committee were furious that they were being used like this and walked out of the meeting, pointing out the absurdity of having a meeting like this without any kind of business case or feasibility study for the plans available after all this time, despite such details having been repeatedly requested.

The real agenda seems to have been using the meeting as a pretext for a news conference that would once more build up the hype around the Maze Stadium with the media following their usual unquestioning attitude to the plans.

“It seems to me that this committee is being used this morning as a platform to justify a PR exercise outside this room and to use the committee this way is an abuse of the democratic process.”
Nelson McCausland (DUP), DCAL Committee member

“This is like being asked to give an opinion on a car you are buying for someone without having seen anything other than how it looks.
…
We are not a plaything to be used in a political game of chess by the Minister. Treating a Committee in this way is corrosive to the democratic process and makes a mockery of DUP claims of accountable Ministers.”
David McNarry (UUP), DCAL Committee Deputy Chariman

Well said and well done. It’s about time someone stood up and questioned the minister’s unwavering support of this expensive white elephant. It’s just a pity that instead of doing their job over the last three years the media have simply been regurgitating government press releases, or maybe we wouldn’t have had to wait this long for it to happen.

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!

(On a side note, the Amalgamation of Northern Ireland Supporters Clubs have reportedly made repeated requests to have an opinion piece printed in the same paper. These repeated requests have allegedly been repeatedly ignored.)

Mistakes 1 and 2: “The British Government gifts us a 360-acre site, barely 10 miles from Belfast”

The site may be free, but surely Mr Curran is familiar with the concept of opportunity cost. A mere two lines later he says “We have the site for free to build a stadium, housing or other amenities.” The site is infinitely better-suited to a housing development than a stadium.

As for the location. The fact that it’s 10 miles from Belfast isn’t a problem. The fact is that it will be a nightmare to get to via the one road in and out and that there will be limited facilities to encourage supporters to hang around a while. This still (after those four years of “navel gazing” by Curran and friends) does not offer a solution to the problem that fans will simply have to turn up immediately before the match and leave again immediately after.

Mistake 3: “The traditionally conservative GAA is persuaded out of its natural heartlands to share the site with rugby and soccer.”

That’s very generous of them but they still won’t have to actually use it given that they have other stadia dotted around the place which they can use. In fact Antrim GAA have said it’s not really needed. Either way it’s unlikely they will worry too much about Rugby’s one game every two years, so why should we build a stadium at the Maze just because the GAA have decided they will not object to football matches being played there?

Mistake 4: “Sinn Fein is also prepared to buy into this sports-sharing ideal even though it is situated in a bastion of unionism.”

The Maze is in a bastion of nothing. It’s in a field outside (a good 3 miles from) a bastion of unionism. What does “bastion of unionism” even mean? Depending on who you talk to Northern Ireland itself is a “bastion of unionism”. Turning the hyperbole dial down a notch or two wouldn’t do any harm.

Mistake 5: “As a leading unionist, who would have no time for terrorism, put it to me the other day: ‘Are we going to allow 10 dead hunger-strikers to deny us a world-class stadium?’”

A very emotive and (surely unintentionally) manipulative way of looking at it. Make people think they’re giving in to terrorism by not building a stadium and a “conflict transformation centre” there. Incidentally, one wonders if this “leading unionist” would by any chance be a Lisburn Councillor or Lagan Valley MLA? Or is there some other reason this “leading unionist” wishes to remain anonymous? Aside from anything else even if concerns with the prison museum are ignored, more than enough concerns remain to warrant terminating the Maze proposals.

Mistake 6: “many fans have genuine concerns about the city losing out to the country in this debate.”

This straw man really annoys people. Supporters of the Maze have tried to propagate the myth that it’s only Belfast-based city-folk who don’t like the Maze and that their objections centre around the fact that it’s in the country. In fact fans who are against the Maze come from all over Northern Ireland and aren’t worried about the city losing out to the country as long as Northern Ireland overall wins. What they’re worried about is sport in Northern Ireland losing out to some ambitious parochial Lagan Valley politicians and a government more concerned with symbolism than practicality.

Mistake 7: “everything from religion and politics to prejudice and snobbery have been key players in this great game of delaying tactics.”

Delaying tactics? Nobody wants to delay anything, we want to stop the Maze disaster altogether, and the politics (from someone who has already put some significant weight behind the opinions of an anonymous “leading unionist” and Sinn Fein’s opinion? What about the shared future stuff we’re being sold as a reason for building the Maze, is that not political priorities overriding sporting need?) and prejudice (football fans are all just bigots, if you’re anti-Maze you must be from Belfast) has been coming largely from one side of the debate. Here’s a clue, it’s not the anti-Maze side.

Mistake 8: “With proper public transport, bus and rail links in place, it will be easily accessible from city and country alike.”

“With proper public transport in place”? In this country? That’s enough said about that one.

Mistake 9: “The Olympic Games are on the horizon. Northern Ireland can benefit by staging some of the events for locations outside London.”

This is another piece of propaganda used my proponents of the Maze project all the time, now that they’ve finally realised the UEFA cup final can’t possibly go to the Maze. The fact is that the Maze, if we’re extremely lucky, could host a couple of the group stages of the football tournament. Baring in mind that Olympic football is for under-23s, and that if we get anything it’s likely to be obscure teams, is it really worth building a £110 million stadium for?

In short, Mr Curran’s “journalism” sums up, sadly, the tactics of those who would consign Northern Ireland’s sports to the Maze. A compilation of lies, half-truths and bad or non-existant research. For a full overview of the list of reasons why the Maze idea is an ill-thought-out disaster waiting to happen see our 7-point summary of complaints.

Don’t let what passes for journalism in Northern Ireland tell you what to think. Please sign the Stadium For Belfast petition.

The council must now prove that they are serious about contributing towards a new stadium for Northern Ireland in Belfast before suspicions mount that they were only ever paying lip-service to the idea in a cynical ploy to curry favour with their electorate.

The two developers involved in the proposals, Durnien and Sheridan, are certainly angry and legal action is already being discussed. If this has all been a big stunt from the council, it could end up being a costly one.

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?

End the White Elephant farce. Sign the Stadium For Belfast Petition.