Blues soon to be 'debt free'

Waterford United will be completely debt free by the end of the year, a ‘Questions and Answers’ meeting on Friday night was told. Chairman John O’Sullivan told the meeting that debts built up in the previous regime were being reduced and that the club are now back on a good financial footing again.

“The club is one of the most stable in the country”, O’Sullivan said. “It’s always a struggle but it’s doing okay and we’re not building up any debt. We have debt from previous years but we have that down to a minimum, and at the end of the year hopefully it will be gone. We are not in any financial difficulty what-so-ever.”

The Chairman was also quick to pay tribute to the work done by the supporters club and explained that the club will answer to all money coming into the club if asked. “The supporters club has been fantastic to Waterford United Football Club. To keep the club going at this level, we’re still looking for more input and any way at all possible to raise more money for the club”, O’Sullivan said.

“Every cent that comes into the club is accounted for. There is not 10 cent that is abused in any manner what so ever. We’re answerable to every cent that comes into the club.”

“Fundraising is a vital part of the club,” Vice-Chairman Sam White added. “We’ve taken a huge gamble this year on reducing the prices on season tickets and general admission prices. There will be a lot of things coming this year...the club won’t survive the fundraising.”

Blues boss Stephan Henderson was also on hand to speak about the clubs’ plans for the year. “What we’ve been doing over the course of the off season and last season, we were trying to put in a structure in terms of where the club should go. But not just the senior teams because we felt that as we were just a senior team, we weren’t open enough to people in general.”

“Next year it’s our intention to have an A Championship team in the League of Ireland,” Henderson said. “We were informed on Wednesday that unfortunately this will be the last year it will be run. With the squad last season, we felt we wouldn’t give players who weren’t playing regularly, a game at a competitive level.”

Henderson also admitted that the club had tried to start schoolboy teams in the Waterford Schoolboy League and begin to develop their own players from a young age, but a blank rejection has halted plans.

“We felt it was important that we have some form of a schoolboy setup where we could take players and develop them. We’d look to get these players at a young age and develop them. We applied to put a schoolboy team into the schoolboy league and we were rejected. On the back of that, we have had clubs approach us to amalgamate with them in some form.”

“They didn’t give us any reason,” a disappointed Chairman John O’Sullivan said when asked about the rejection.

“At the moment we have 17 players in the first team squad and we hope to have another three in the next two weeks; we have been talking to a number of players.” “We’re currently looking to put together a ladies team. There is talk in Dublin about a ladies league. We have applied for it.....so we hope to have a ladies team representing Waterford United.”

“We had to expand into the full community to make Waterford United Football Club accessible to as many people in the region as possible.”

Henderson also confirmed that John Kearney is to remain in Australia for the entire year and wont be re-signing this year. Answering questions from the large gathering, Henderson confirmed that Vinny Sullivan will not be returning having rejected a contract offer.

Also confirmed for the year are a 3-week summer camp, a 5-a-side soccer blitz, a shopping centre penalty shoot-out, a Golf Classic and an X-factor style competition to be held in Revolution Bar in Waterford City.