High Court petition to wind up Cork City football club: ThePost.ie


TCH Archives > Sunday Business Post > 2006/07/02 > High Court petition to wind up Cork City football club

High Court petition to wind up Cork City football club
Sunday, July 02, 2006 - By Ian Kehoe
They ha ve brought a High Court petition to wind up the club after an intensive audit of its financial records. During the audit, it emerged that Cork City owes the Revenue about €160,000 in outstanding taxes. The Revenue is seeking to dissolve Cork City Investment FC, the holding company behind the club.

The petition will be heard by the High Court on July17, unless a s ett lement can be reached before then. Brian Lennox, Cork City’s chairman, said that the debt would be paid in the next two weeks and insisted the club would not be wound up. Lennox said a lot of the debt was historic and that the club had taken a number of steps to shore up its finances in recent years.

‘‘A lot of it goes back to the bad old days where most clubs did not maintain proper books,” he said. ‘‘There were some problems over historic PAYE and PRSI payments and we are trying to sort it all out.”

Representatives of the club met Revenue officials in recent weeks in an effort to resolve the issue. However, no agreement was brokered, prompting the Revenue to issue the petition. Cork City Investments FC was incorporated three years ago as the holding company for the club. Lennox owns 99 per cent of the company. He said it was almost impossible to make money from an Eircom League club and said the government should provide financial support to the league. Cork City is believed to have one of the biggest wage bills in the league.

According to its most recent accounts, Cork City Investment FC had retained losses of €140,000 at the end of 2004 after making a loss of €66,000 during the year. This is the second petition the Revenue has brought against an Eircom League club. In March, it brought a petition to wind up Accolade, the company behind Shelbourne Football Club.

The petition was later dropped after Shelbourne paid the Revenue €300,000. The Revenue has launched a major investigation into the financial affairs and tax liabilities of soccer clubs in the Eircom League.

The Revenue designated the 22-team league as an ‘‘area of specific risk’’, and is conducting audits on a number of clubs within the league.