'There's no magic wand going to find the money'
The chairman of Athboy Celtic FC says there is disbelief at the 'industrial scale' of financial loss suffered by clubs and organisations after sports facility construction firm CWC went bust and he wants auditors to follow the money trail and uncover what happened to his club's €150,000 and the €2m owed to devastated schools, clubs and charities
GAVAN BECTON
The chairman of Athboy Celtic has said he was in 'disbelief' at the industrial scale of the losses impacting sportis clubs, schools and charities in the wake of the collapse of sports facility construction firm CWC last week.
The Meath club could be out of pocket to the tune of €150,000 following the collapse of the construction company charged with building its new all weather pitch facility at the Cowpark home behind Athboy Community School.
A heated creditors meeting in Dublin on Friday heard that Clearwater Construction & Landscaping (CWC) owed over €2m to clubs, schools, charities and businesses nationwide when it went bust.
Clearwater had already carried out around eight weeks work on the development of a new full size all-weather pitch at the club grounds but notice was given on Tuesday, 6th October that a meeting of the creditors of the company would be held on Friday, 23rd October.
That meeting took place in Talbot Hotel, Stillorgan, Co Dublin. The company was shown to have a deficit of over €2.37m. This is the difference between its liabilities and assets.
According to reporting by the Irish Independent, the Co Wicklow-based firm owes more than €2.06m to its unsecured creditors, mostly made up of sports clubs, schools, charities and suppliers. CWC also owes the Revenue Commissioners €230,176, while employees are due €85,790. The estimated realisable value of CWC’s assets was just over €5,000 meaning many attendees at the creditors’ meeting are unlikely to receive much of what they are owed.
The Co Wicklow-based firm owes more than €2.06m to its unsecured creditors, mostly made up of sports clubs, schools, charities and suppliers.
Alongside Athboy Celtic, other clubs and schools affected included: Bunclody AFC (€102,163), Bridge United FC (€81,825) and Kilmacthomas GAA Club (€50,000). Two schools were also out of pocket, including Our Lady of Consolation National School in Dublin, which was owed around €91,200. SOS Kilkenny, a charity that supports adults with intellectual disabilities, was listed as being owed €3,825. However, the charity disputed this, claiming it was owed €42,000. Athboy Celtic believe the sum they are out of pocket is closer to €150,000.
In a statement Clearwater director PJ Norton blamed CWC’s business woes on bad weather delaying projects, as well as inflation and rising material costs and expressed his “sincere regret” over the position many of CWC’s clients and suppliers were left in after the company went bust.
"Unfortunately we are one the highest of the unsecured creditors. They have us down for £138,000 and we believe it's nearer to £150,000. But look, we're not going to see any of it. Nobody's going to see anything of it," Athboy Celtic chairman, Bernard O'Byrne told the Chronicle over the weekend.
Mr O’Byrne claimed Athboy Celtic had paid around €219,000 to CWC so far. This figure included bills for completed groundworks and deposit payments of roughly €150,000 for equipment, including artificial grass and floodlights.
"On Friday Clearwater, tried to appoint a firm of liquidators. So we said, no, you're not calling the shots anymore here. We want to put in our own liquidators. And we nominated Gerard Hughes of KPMG and John Healy of Kroll.
"So they are now the liquidators and from Tuesday or whatever, they will start going through the books and see what are the correct figures, because there was two or three people at the meeting were saying that the amounts in against them were less than what they owed."
Ultimately, regardless of what the auditors uncover, "there's no magic wand going to find the money," says Mr O'Byrne, a former CEO of the FAI, adding that there are serious questions that need to be answered.
"We want to know why Clearwater was taking deposits from everybody for maybe a period of six months or so. You know, where did that money go? Where is the money trail? You have a scenario that this company is collapsing around them and they were still collecting deposits. We want the liquidators to follow the money trail and see what happened."
Mr O'Byrne says the reaction in the community has transitioned from shock to disbelief as the scale of the losses endured by sporting clubs and organisations has emerged.
"When you see that it was done on an industrial scale, it wasn't just that Athboy that were taken for suckers or whatever, but it was done on an industrial scale. People are angry, obviously, at CWC. They're attaching no blame to the committee or anything.
"So now it's a case of how do we get back on track? What do we need to do, you know? There is some talk about a GoFundMe page, which the club doesn't want to set up, but the members and people in the community want to set it up. But we need to look now at other options as well, because we've been four years fundraising. That's a lot of bake sales, a lot of table quizzes, a lot of marathon runs, you know, I don't think you can go back to that well this quickly.
For now, we'll look and tweak the project so that we could spend the money that we still have. I mean, we still have money and get our all-weather as soon as possible."
Mr O'Byrne says the financial loss facing the club has no bearing on he day to day running of the club. Athboy Celtic has one full sized grass pitch and a number of small astro pitches at their grounds in what was formerly known as the cowpark. They opened their clubhouse in 2022. The club has 500 registered players and 35 teams.
"It doesn't affect the day to day running of the club. We deliberately kept the pitch project apart from the running of the club so there's no worries there."
Construction of the new pitch was in it's infancy when work ground to a halt.
"I wouldn't call it construction. I'd nearly call it destruction because, they basically dug a hole in the ground, which is what you have to do for an Astro. You have to dig down so that you can put in layers of foundation. They hadn't begun the drainage. He hadn't put in the stone. So it really is a hole in the ground.
"We're talking to three contractors at the moment. So they've come up and they've had a look at it and they're going to come back next week with a proposal to us and see, can we just carry on the project? Or do we, as I said, do we need to tweak it to make it come to fruition?
Mr O'Byrne acknowledged the support for Athboy Celtic from the FAI, even if it was more of the moral than financial kind.
"I was talking to (FAI President) Paul Cook, and look they're totally supportive but there ain't any money there, in fairness. But what they can do for us really is talk to the minister, get access, talk to the people on the sports capital grants so that the clubs affected might be treated gently in relation to allocations."