IFA ‘Mini Launch’ for Premiership at Mourneview
The IFA continued with its series of ‘mini launches’ for the new JJB Sports Premiership at Mourneview Park today. The IFA was represented by Morton McKnight, Senior Clubs Vice President and the Mayor of Craigavon, Alderman Sidney Anderson and a number of the Councillors also attended. Glenavon Chairman Adrian Teer, the Directors, Director of Football Alan Fraser and Tuda Murphy, representing the players, were also present.
Ian Irwin, Morton McKnight, Alderman Sidney Anderson and Adrian Teer
Adrian Teer Critical of ‘self-interests’ outside Senior Game
Kicking off the proceedings, Mr Teer welcomed the Mayor and his councillors and Mr McKnight. ”The mini launch, as I understand it” he continued, “is to acknowledge and promote Glenavon’s participation in the new JJB Sports Premiership which, fingers-crossed, is due to kick off on Saturday. As Chairman of the Club, it would be remiss of me, and indeed evasive to make no mention of the embarrassing events last week which culminated in the Premiership football being cancelled. In an age when Senior clubs like ours are being licensed to ensure their compliance with best practice and business standards, I think it is absolutely essential that the product that is the Premiership is professionally promoted and administered. It is very much the view of the Board of Directors of this Club that it must be freed from the self-interests outside the senior game which are currently divisive influences.”
“The new Board of Directors that was installed in August 2007 has hopefully instilled a professional, business-like approach to the running of the Club both on and off the park. We had devised a 5-year development plan and we are now in year 2 and in fact are more advanced than year 2 in a lot of what we are trying to do. An integral part of what the Board is trying to achieve here is the major sponsorship agreement we signed over the Summer with local company Bedeck; a three year agreement which gives us a considerable financial basis to work on and how nice to have local company like Bedeck backing the football club.”
“We are all looking forward with keen anticipation to the new league and, being quite honest, it’s tinged with one very genuine regret and that is that our near neighbours failed to secure their pace in the league. It’s certainly the view of our Board of Directors that the Premiership needs Portadown, Glenavon needs Portadown in the Premiership and Craigavon needs a strong Glenavon and a strong Portadown competing at the highest level. We wish Portadown well for this season and hope they will be back in the Premiership in the very near future.
“I’d like to thank JJB Sports for their sponsorship which, believe me, is the real life blood of the local game. Here at Mourneview Park we are fortunate to boast one of the best stadia in Irish League football and we have plans for future development raising it to UEFA 2 standard and we ar grateful for the support that we’ve had from the IFA and Sport NI.”
The Mayor congratulated Glenavon on achieving membership of the Premiership and wished the Club every success in the coming season and he echoed the previous comments on Craigavon needing both local teams in the top tier of local football.
Morton McKnight began ”I’m representing the IFA here today, and that’s not a signal for people to start throwing things at me! This new league took almost three years in the planning and the clubs had two years to put their house in order. We had a launch last Monday when we announced the new sponsors and the format of the new League was explained to the visiting press and it went down extremely well and everyone was looking forward to the Saturday. It emerged later that week that there was a problem with the referees and I would have to tell you, gentlemen, it was no fault of Senior football. There’s an old adage ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’ but we found out that there had been negotiations with the Association and the Referees but we were not advised until late July and with people on holiday it didn’t give a great deal of time to manoeuvre. We hurriedly nominated three men to represent (Senior) football at these meetings with the Referees Association but faced with an ultimatum ‘if we don’t get what we want we’re going on strike’ it threw everything into chaos. We did eventually reach an agreement last Thursday night at 8 o’clock but the referees weren’t happy because of some problem with Intermediate football or indeed the new Championship. It was a dreadful disappointment when we had reached an agreement that we were’nt able to go ahead and it’s been reckoned that football has lost somewhere in the region of £100,000 due to last Saturday’s cancellations.
“The new League was set up to try to improve the game, to improve the standard of football and to woo more supporters through the turnstiles. My sympathies are with those supporters.”
