Belfast Blogs.com

President of the Irish Football Association Raymond Kennedy has indicated his preference for a new build stadium to be built as part of Ormeau Park. 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...

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...

It’s 2-and-a-half years now since direct rule ministers told us that the Maze was “the only viable option” and yet we don’t seem any closer to seeing a business case for it. 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...

Culture minister Edwin Poots was yesterday foiled in an attempt to “abuse” the democratic process by manipulating the DCAL Executive Committee to justify a publicity stunt promoting the Maze stadium plans later in the day. 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...