That adage about the League of Ireland making a small fortune out of a big one for owners has never been so apt in the case of Dundalk’s demise. Now that the immediate threat of extinction has lifted from the club, through the gun smoke emerges a picture of financial carnage that brought them to the precipice. In numerical terms, that their cash reserves plummeted from €3,131,890 to €72,002 over a three-year period is a cause for alarm.
And that’s up to December 2023, before the latest difficulties. Make no mistake, Dundalk FC is insolvent and has been for a number of years. Technically, a clatter of league clubs are in the same boat.
Moreover, the pattern is reflected in the UK despite the greater revenue streams. So how could a team that was mixing it with Arsenal, Rapid Vienna, and Molde in the Europa League stages in 2020 descend so steeply, so quickly? Dundalk endured the perfect storm of both factors — a team no longer enjoying the haul of European qualification prize-money combined with an investor turning off the tap. Throw in a dollop of mismanagement and the recipe for disaster is ominous.
John Temple’s Silverlane Ireland consortium last week became the fourth different owner of the club in just under three years. A collective sense of relief engulfed the area when Chicago hedge fund Peak6 offloaded their shareholding to local owners in late 2021. “We want the connection between the club, players and supporters as real — that’s something that only .