Casement Park in line for major overhaul - 40,000 all seater Stadium.

[Tony Baloney]

They appear to have been looking for a blank cheque, which is mind blowing.

In 2010, they had £62.5 million from Stormont and they added in £15 million of their own.

In additional funding, Westminster has offered £50 million, Dublin has put forward about £40 million and it seems Stormont will give about £40 million additional funding to compensate for inflation.

Original funding = £62.5 million
Additional funding = £130 million
GAA additional funding = £0

There are people who genuinely believe that the GAA are being hard done by here. Insane.

100%. They had more than enough money secured to build a great stadium, but instead of building what they could afford, they wanted someone, anyone, to fund the gap between what they could afford and what they wanted. Someone used the term "hubris" earlier in the thread and that's what it was. 

[RadioGAAGAA]

I can't comment on the merits of seating vs terracing in the original plan (though iirc the GAA were opting for all-seater from the beginning?).

Anyhow, by the time the GAA were hoping that Euro2028 soccer would save them (by justifying extra government funding), that could only ever have been all-seater, since that is/was a mandatory UEFA requirement.

While a nice, tidy 10,000 (County-standard) ground would NEVER have qualified as a "regional" stadium to receive government funding from the original Maze money.

They were (all-seater) - which was a big mistake IMO.
Given the good state of the terracing, they could have built a really good (and big) new stand to replace old one, put a new roof over the terracing on far side of ground and called it a day.

~30k capacity, covered standing, covered seating and likely well within budget.


Euro28 should never have been in the conversation. A millstone.

[Evil Genius]

Euro28 should never have been in the conversation. A millstone.

Except it was just the GAA's last chance to screw an extra huge wedge out of the Brits, even if it always was pretty hopeless - a "Hail Mary", if you like.

[seafoid]

It does strike me more a problem of dysfunctional government in the basket case state. Lough Neagh a worse example.

Not necessarily blaming DUP but in general, even when they can agree the pace of things is glacial.

The A5 is the poster child.

[illdecide]

Euro28 should never have been in the conversation. A millstone.

Except it was just the GAA's last chance to screw an extra huge wedge out of the Brits, even if it always was pretty hopeless - a "Hail Mary", if you like.

If thats all the Brits owed us that would be great...They should build us the stadium and upgrade every other stadium in the 6 Counties and then beg for forgiveness

[weareros]

Euro28 should never have been in the conversation. A millstone.

Except it was just the GAA's last chance to screw an extra huge wedge out of the Brits, even if it always was pretty hopeless - a "Hail Mary", if you like.

You can't put that on GAA. The IFA wanted to be part of the UK/Ireland 2030 World Cup bid and Casement was their only hope. This was initially a WC bid that got switched to Euro 2028, as it was believed at time there was a better chance of securing that. In any case the UK and Irish gov both backed it and all Football Associations backed it. Then NI football supporters, Bryson and the likes objected, and Tories got cold feet even though every country that hosts competitions like this invest in big infrastructure projects. This was scuppered by a section of Unionists.

[Evil Genius]

Euro28 should never have been in the conversation. A millstone.

Except it was just the GAA's last chance to screw an extra huge wedge out of the Brits, even if it always was pretty hopeless - a "Hail Mary", if you like.

You can't put that on GAA. The IFA wanted to be part of the UK/Ireland 2030 World Cup bid and Casement was their only hope. This was initially a WC bid that got switched to Euro 2028, as it was believed at time there was a better chance of securing that. In any case the UK and Irish gov both backed it and all Football Associations backed it. Then NI football supporters, Bryson and the likes objected, and Tories got cold feet even though every country that hosts competitions like this invest in big infrastructure projects. This was scuppered by a section of Unionists.

The objections from NI fans - not all of them btw - Bwyson and a few Tory backbenchers etc was absolutely NOT what scuppered the deal, since Westminster could easily have ignored them.

Rather it was because the GAA were saying that it would take £300m or £400m, depending on whose figures you believe, to build a Euro-compliant stadium*. So that it was actually the Labour government which in September 2024 finally pulled the plug on it as being unaffordable, despite their NI Secretary Hillary Benn being otherwise broadly sympathetic:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg7899k921ko

Or do you imagine that even at the lower estimate, £242m** of government funding would have been justified?


* - Long experience tells us that even had the funding somehow been available, it would still have been very doubtful that the GAA could have had the new Casement ready by the summer of 2027 i.e. UEFA's deadline for the first test event for any newly-built stadium.

** - That is £300m  minus Dublin's £43m and the GAA's own £15m. Or up to £342m of government funding were the £400m total cost to be accurate.

[weareros]

* - Long experience tells us that even had the funding somehow been available, it would still have been very doubtful that the GAA could have had the new Casement ready by the summer of 2027 i.e. UEFA's deadline for the first test event for any newly-built stadium.

** - That is £300m  minus Dublin's £43m and the GAA's own £15m. Or up to £342m of government funding were the £400m total cost to be accurate.

The reason they would not have made deadline is because the Tories let it drag on after initially committing to funding it, by the time Labour came along, it was already too late. The UK government spent £9 billion on hosting 2012 Olympics so it was peculiar suddenly there was no money for Casement. Euro 28 will be a big showcase for these two islands. There would have been money if it did not become a political football. The DUP spoke out against it in Westminster, saying it was outrageous to spend money on Casement when hospitals and local
services were underfunded - as if that was Casement's fault. Chris Heaton-Harris wanted to appease Unionists after their anger over NI Protocol. All in all it was the IFA that approached GAA for Casement and government committed to making it happen. That they pulled the plug is the reason it did not happen. North has a 17 billion deficit every year. A few hundred million on a stadium that would bring investment over next 20 years was good use of public money. The NI deficit not caused by Casement will cost UK taxpayer 340 billion over next 20 years. That's one thing you won't hear Unionist talk about in Westminster.

[Wildweasel74]

Only the GAA would  expect to own a stadium after putting just 15 million into it.

[Wildweasel74]

Just to note, DE went £300million overspend last year, and i expect the same this yr.

[ONeill]

Aside from political inadequacies and the GAA's incompetence, anyone want to hazard a guess how this pans out in the next 5 years?

[Evil Genius]

The reason they would not have made deadline is because the Tories let it drag on after initially committing to funding it, by the time Labour came along, it was already too late.

The Tory government didn't just "let it drag". Instead they baulked when the saw the scale of the GAA's demands, which seeing as the GAA felt they could milk the Euro2028 cash cow for every last drop, was WAY over what was reasonable. While the succeeding Labour government agreed - hardly surprising since we were talking somewhere north of a third of a billion pounds!

The UK government spent £9 billion on hosting 2012 Olympics so it was peculiar suddenly there was no money for Casement. Euro 28 will be a big showcase for these two islands.

Dear God! Are you really drawing a comparison between Belfast's hosting a group in Euro28 and the Olympic Games?

The Olympics drew hundreds of thousands of visitors from overseas, with nearly 11,000 participating athletes alone. The facilities were then available to host the Paralympics which followed. The legacy included not just the Athletics Stadium, which incidentally has been drawing 60k spectators over 20 times a season to WHU games etc, plus major athletics meets and concerts etc; but also brand new state of the art facilities for cycling, swimming, canoeing, gymnastics, rowing, BMX etc. All of this was situated in a brand new Olympic Park, now a welcome green amenity for the locals, along with new Tube stations and other major public transport upgrades. Oh, and the Athletics Village was converted to provide nearly 4,000 flats for something like 8,000 local residents, all of which formed major regeneration for one of the poorer areas of London.

By contrast, Euro 28 would have seen Casement host 5 or 6 games, possibly for the likes of Bosnia, Denmark, Azerbaijan, Austria, Slovakia etc, with no guarantee that NI themselves would even qualify, and er, that would have been it. "Whoop-di-doo", as I think the phrase goes. (And I say all that as someone who would still have liked to see Casement host a Group - but not at any price, if only because it would have swallowed up the entire budget for all sports for the next 20 or 30 years.)

There would have been money if it did not become a political football. The DUP spoke out against it in Westminster, saying it was outrageous to spend money on Casement when hospitals and local
services were underfunded - as if that was Casement's fault. Chris Heaton-Harris wanted to appease Unionists after their anger over NI Protocol.

There was money - still is - but not the hundreds of millions the GAA were demanding over and above their own paltry £15m contribution, for something which would provide a legacy of precisely one sell-out football final a year.

(As for Unionist "anger", the Tories had a majority of over 80 seats in 2019, meaning they could blithely ignore it - which they did, btw, on that and just about every other issue.)

All in all it was the IFA that approached GAA for Casement and government committed to making it happen. That they pulled the plug is the reason it did not happen.

Of course the IFA wanted it, if only because it wouldn't have cost them anything, while generating extra revenue for the game in NI, plus home advantage (possibly), prestige and the chance to rub shoulders with the Big Boys at UEFA etc.
But while both governments, Tory and Labour were supportive in principle, neither could or would sign a blank cheque.

North has a 17 billion deficit every year. A few hundred million on a stadium that would bring investment over next 20 years was good use of public money. The NI deficit not caused by Casement will cost UK taxpayer 340 billion over next 20 years. That's one thing you won't hear Unionist talk about in Westminster.

Er, a deficit like that is cause NOT to waste more money unnecessarily, rather than add to it, thereby necessitating cuts elsewhere to rather more vital services.

None of which is to say that Casement doesn't deserve significant government support to get built - it quite clearly does. But the sums which were originally envisaged and ringfenced should have been more than adequate to provide a suitable stadium, had it not been for the GAA's hubris, arrogance, waste and incompetence, qualities which I'm pleased to see are recognised by a number of reasonable posters on this forum.

Finally, had the government and GAA somehow agreed a figure to get the project started at some stage, do you have any confidence that the GAA would have brought the project home on time and within budget? Or how far do you think they'd have got before the begging bowl came out again?

[illdecide]

We can go back over 100's of pages of who said what and just copy and paste all our same comments over and over and over again but History tells us that this project did not happen because of bigotry and nothing else.

Did the GAA make a balls of it?. YES!!!
Did the DUP stop this project because of Bigotry?. YES!!!
Was/Is the money there for the project?. YES!!! but how dare the GAA get more than soccer and rugby. Doesn't matter who was gonna cough up, the bottom line is this stadium would have been built and the money would have been found somewhere if there had of been no objections from DUP.
There was similar funding for an Ice Rink in Dundonald, let that sink in.
We can't even put Irish signs in the fecking train station without the Country going into meltdown, that's it in a nutshell.
As someone stated earlier, the stadium and Euro's would have been great for the economy and for years to come. I'm sure if N Ireland wanted to play a big game there in a stadium like that it would have been great for Belfast and the two communites to mingle together but there are certain parties not interested in that but just keep them apart or they become extinct.

[general_lee]

Euro28 should never have been in the conversation. A millstone.

Except it was just the GAA's last chance to screw an extra huge wedge out of the Brits, even if it always was pretty hopeless - a "Hail Mary", if you like.

And what? The GAA has for generations been systematically underfunded in the occupied six. 

[Duine Inteacht Eile]

We can go back over 100's of pages of who said what and just copy and paste all our same comments over and over and over again but History tells us that this project did not happen because of bigotry and nothing else.

Did the GAA make a balls of it?. YES!!!
Did the DUP stop this project because of Bigotry?. YES!!!
Was/Is the money there for the project?. YES!!! but how dare the GAA get more than soccer and rugby. Doesn't matter who was gonna cough up, the bottom line is this stadium would have been built and the money would have been found somewhere if there had of been no objections from DUP.
There was similar funding for an Ice Rink in Dundonald, let that sink in.
We can't even put Irish signs in the fecking train station without the Country going into meltdown, that's it in a nutshell.
As someone stated earlier, the stadium and Euro's would have been great for the economy and for years to come. I'm sure if N Ireland wanted to play a big game there in a stadium like that it would have been great for Belfast and the two communites to mingle together but there are certain parties not interested in that but just keep them apart or they become extinct.

But they are getting more than soccer or rugby. An additional £130 million has been put on the table for the GAA. And still they're hoping to just throw together a county ground.
Whether Unionists are bigoted or not, they are 100% correct to oppose a blank cheque to bail this mess out. Even the GAA themselves aren't willing to commit any further funding to the project. That gives an insight into their view of it.
I think people rushing to land this at Unionist bigotry's door are exposing their own inherent bigotry. Nolan show victims.