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Big decision to be made on the shape of the future of the club tonight.

Roughly 85% of there membership voted for this. Allergic to hard work, everyone wants the get rich quick scheme. 

I really fail to understand the logic myself. I cannot see what good will come of it and what the Saudi's ulterior motives are, though they are unlikely to be for the good of Galway football.

I'm seeing a lot of lads being carefree enough about the whole thing;

"I'd rather five years of success and start again"

"It's not like it's Liverpool or Man United"

Just a couple of horrendous quotes I've seen from supposed fans. It's really damaging to what responsible clubs are trying to do in this league when 3 of the strongest regional clubs are owned and run by foreign gamblers. 

Can you not be responsible and run by "foreign gamblers"

Are "foreign gamblers" worse than domestic gamblers?

No but fans should have the best interest of the club as a priority. When short term success is put ahead of long-term viability that leads to bad headlines for the league, always has done. Fan ownership is the best way to ensure clubs stay active but when fans sell up at the merest promise of short term success that's very disappointing. 

I understand what you're saying, I just can't figure out which bracket you have put Dundalk in in the bit I hilighted in bold

I have very much put Dundalk in the bracket of questionable foreign investment. And while I accept that they are far from Arkaga I still don't know what their game is. Also I await hearing of any investment of note that isn't in the first team. I am happy to be corrected on that? What's the wage bill at Dundalk now? Circa €2m? Is there much community efforts going on? Attendances have been pretty poor this year from my admittedly casual observation. Pumping money into the first team in the hope of breaking Europe while the only long-term investment is a bit of concrete being laid would worry me. 

I saw some fella saying this on twitter. Absolutely disgusted by it to be honest. That sort of mentality has been too prevalent in the league for far too long with way too many clubs not having any long term plan at all. Galway fans fought hard to get their club back up and running and then just hand it over like that. I hope it doesn't go belly up but if it does they won't be getting much sympathy.

While not really for this thread, but, I have no idea what the wage bill is, but like yourselves we moved to 52 week contracts, so it's obviously increased. We do seem to have a stronger squad than in previous years, not sure if that is pumping money into the first team or now though. We also have the addition of a CEO on the pay roll. Community efforts have carried on as is from the previous owners, we still have the same general manager (brother of one of the previous managers) so i expect the community work will continue. there have also been some ground improvements, nothing major but also nothing the previous owners couldn't have done

That's fair enough, and possibly my guess of the wage bill is way off. If it's not though than I don't see how Dundalk can generate the turnovers to meet their financial commitments without progress in Europe. That's what got a lot of clubs into trouble in the past and it seems to be happening again. 

I guess it's possible Dundalk pay Adorjan, Tagbajumi, Hoban, Duffy etc. 500 quid a week but I doubt it. 

The co-op has not been a success as of yet due to a lack of buy-in from the general public and a lack of effort from most of the members, myself included. But we've only been at it for half a season. To throw it away for a pipe dream is a bit sickening.

The club was going nowhere to be fair.  They couldn't afford to sack the manager (until now) and results have been awful and Galway werent going to make the playoffs which would have been a bit of a joke.  this is a great opportunity, not saying there arent risks, but what was the alternative?  Wasting away in the lower half of the 1st division or getting relegated every other year?    Galway could potentially win the LOI in a few years if the investment comes in.  Galway Utd have 2 trophies to their name and are the unwanted bastard son of Galway while the golden child Connacht Rugby gets all the publicity and investment.  Galway Utd doesn't currently have a training pitch and is getting kicked off training pitches here and there.  Now there will be a training ground and investment in underage football.

Worst case scenario the club starts again.  I personally think the benefits far outweigh the risks.

Disagree with all this and would hope they are denied a license to re-enter when they go bust. We don't need that level irresponsibility in the league. Galway fans would have done well to think of the years they had no club to support when voting last night. 

Galway are down one year and fan owned for six months. A pathetic capitulation, it was a bit hard so they gave up.

Would ya go away and sh*te. 

The Saudis were putting more money on the table than anything the club had dreamed of. 

 

500k? Hardly worth throwing away your club for. Anyway I suspect you just don't get it. It's desperate and lazy.  

That's good to hear, we're still waiting on a 20k seater stadium in Cork 

Cork is a football city.  Galway isn't.  A co-op works better in Cork

I meant that we were promised things by a shady investor group before including a 20k seater stadium. Cork is historically not a football city, football is popular there now due to the tremendous effort of the trust, volunteers, players and staff in reaching out to the community and engaging young families through schools, summer camps, competitions etc. These things don't happen overnight. 

Cork is a garrison city with a much bigger population and a stronger football tradition. Look at the amount of cork players to play for Ireland over the years. How many has Galway produced?  There's your answer.

Ignoring the first part I accept your point that Galway is less developed a football city that Cork. I under no circumstances think that the correct way to grow football in the region is to sell up one of our few remaining fan owned clubs to shady investors about who information is extremely limited. 

If as I suspect this period of foreign investment ends in tears the merger of clubs and FAI in 2020 should look into minimum fan ownership. 

What training ground are you talking about? Where will it be? There was the possibility of a training ground in Ballybane before there was any talk of investors. 

It is their plan to buy a training ground.   The current situation is there is no training ground nor likely to be.