The Ulster Gaelic Athletic Association chief remains confident the stadium will be built in time for the 2028 UEFA European Football Championship, despite the UK chancellor's plans to axe infrastructure funding.
ADVERTISEMENTWhen UEFA announced in October 2023 that a joint submission by the four British nations and Ireland was the successful bid to host the Euro football championships in 2028, there was much celebration across the countries.
It marked one of those rare occasions where England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland had successfully clubbed together and achieved a positive result.
The expected outcome will benefit 10 cities that will cash in on the sale of 3 million tickets, bringing massive retail and hospitality spending in each participating city.
That's the good news on paper, because of the 10 participating cities where the standard of football stadiums is among the best in the world, two have some homework to do.
Villa Park in Birmingham, England will require some renovation, while a series of contentious issues have arisen in Belfast.
The biggest football ground in the Northern Irish capital is Windsor Park, the home of Linfield FC. However, despite getting a recent upgrade, its capacity figure of 18,500 is deemed too small to host Euro games.
The bad news for Windsor Park is, that because of its small capacity, an alternative venue had to be found in Belfast.
Lack of funding prompts delays
Enter Casement Park, on the other side of town. It's the only place in Northern Ireland that could hold a crowd of more than 30,000 — the minimum required by UEFA.
Named after Roger Casement, a protestant Irish man who rebelled against British rule in Ireland at the turn of the 20th century, the ground is owned by the Gaelic Athletic Association, better known in Ireland as the GAA.
Gaelic games are Ireland's national sport. They are played primarily by Catholics who, in Northern Ireland, are traditionally perceived as being opposed to British rule in the northern part of the island.
When the GAA offered Casement Park in 2011 as a venue to host five games in the 2028 championships as part of the UK/Irish bid to UEFA, it did so on the basis that its long-abandoned football ground would be re-constructed. The initial cost was £76 million (€90 million).
That sum would be partly funded by several vested interests: rising inflation has seen the local Northern Ireland Executive donate £62.5 million, while the Irish government offered £43 million, and the GAA — which owns the ground but is an amateur organisation — put up £15 million.
That left the British government having to make a massive donation to get the construction project underway.
However, despite numerous promises by the previous Conservative government in London, the priority given to Brexit; COVID-19; the collapse of the Northern Ireland ruling executive; and the comings and goings of Prime Ministers David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak; have meant that the Tories have had other priorities to deal with.
Constructing a football stadium in far-off Belfast — that would ultimately benefit Irish nationalists who oppose British rule in Northern Ireland anyway — has been way down the to-do list of Conservative former ministers in London, many of whom viewed unimportant events in Belfast with an attitude of dismissal.
ADVERTISEMENTRoll on the clock and 13 years after work on the initial bid to bring the Euros to Britain and Ireland began, the failure of Westminster to commit money to the reconstruction of Casement Park is now coming back to bite the UK's new government.
Construction costs for developing the GAA ground in republican West Belfast have risen from £76 million to a current estimate of £300 million.
The Westminster government's delay in approving its share of construction costs has allowed inflation to take hold and as the delays go on, the clock is ticking.
Belfast at risk of being dropped as Euro 2028 host
If work doesn't start soon, UEFA could find itself removing Belfast from the list of 10 cities earmarked to host the games, with the likely beneficiary being Dublin.
ADVERTISEMENTPaul O'Doherty is a councillor for the Social Democratic and Labour Party: a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. His constituency office is 100 metres away from derelict Casement Park.
He thinks that the UK authorities are "very aware of the urgency".
"We've had conversations with the British government, with the Irish government and everyone involved, and they are aware that this is a missed opportunity that we can't simply let pass us by," he said.
"This is a golden opportunity to put Belfast on the world map for all the right reasons," O'Doherty added. "It would be just unthinkable that the games wouldn't go ahead due to lack of funding."
ADVERTISEMENTThe business community are also all well aware of the potential that the Euros can bring to a city like Belfast, which has had its fair share of negative publicity since the early 1970s, to say the least.
It's estimated that hosting five international games in Belfast could see spending in the city reach close to £200 million. As well as that, the games will be an opportunity to showcase what the city has to offer visitors who have never been to Belfast before.
Glyn Roberts heads up Retail Northern Ireland and knows what these games can bring to the capital.
"I was out in Frankfurt for the England versus Denmark game recently," he said. "I got a chance to talk to many of the traders in Frankfurt and it was huge for them. I think it would be an amazing thing to get for Belfast [and] for this island."
ADVERTISEMENTA huge budgetary hole left by the Conservatives
With a new Labour government in charge of the UK, the new secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn MP, is conscious that the outstanding budget needs to be approved shortly.
But his situation has not been helped by recent revelations from the new chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, that her Conservative predecessors in government have left a £22 billion vacuum in the UK piggy bank.
As a result, many high-profile infrastructure projects have had to be cancelled, leaving Benn with a major challenge on his hands to secure the outstanding money for Casement Park.
"There are two key issues with the project," he said in a statement to Euronews via the Northern Ireland Office. "Firstly, the projected cost of redeveloping the stadium has increased enormously since the project was launched in 2011. Secondly, we're into the last minutes of extra time in trying to get the stadium built in time for EURO 2028."
ADVERTISEMENTHe assured however that Casement Park will be built "one way or another".
"As soon as we [the UK government] are in a position to make a decision regarding the redevelopment of the stadium for EURO 2028, we will," he said.
The statement provided no timeline for when construction will commence, which may suggest that Benn appears to be no further on than his predecessors.
The money will have to be declared soon otherwise a golden opportunity for Belfast City will be squandered. In the meantime, the clock is ticking.
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