Oran Kearney worried about financial implications for clubs

With the new season due to kick-off on October 17th clubs are still in the dark as to whether or not fans will be allowed to attend games, and if so how many.

Earlier this week Cliftonville Chairman Gerard Lawlor warned of a bleak future for clubs if financial support wasn’t forthcoming.

And Coleraine boss Kearney echoed those sentiments saying reduced revenue was “worrying”.

“From a financial point of view it’s worrying,” he said.

“People will say, ‘you’re alright, you got a decent rattle in Europe’.

“But we want to park that money and we’ve a good idea where we’d like that money to go.

“The key thing is that we don’t eat into that money.

“In two or three Saturdays time when we play Ballymena, there’ll only be a couple of hundred at it, compared to a couple of thousand and the revenue and the bar and everything else.

“It’s not sustainable and that’s it in black and white.

“At this point in time, something has to give, but I don’t know how – whether it is government or IFA.

“One week you can get away with that, or one game you can cope, but if it’s going to look like that every week moving forward – not just our club but every club – is going to be decimated.

“For me, there has to be something that comes in from way above in terms of bridging this or closing the gap.

“To me, it’s their job – government or IFA – they’ve a big responsibility.

“At the moment we’re trying our best but we have no guidance. At this point in time it seems rudderless.

“We’re trying to do things with fans like other clubs but you’re down to a huge amount of goodwill, huge amount of volunteers.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to newsletter.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to the best Northern Irish and UK news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than five articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Thank you,

Alistair Bushe

Editor