HOPE may be fading but Casement Park’s project team are still looking at options to deliver a stadium capable of hosting Ulster finals, The Irish News understands.
The Irish Examiner reported on Friday that the GAA had “conceded” the redevelopment of the ground would have to be scaled back and that its capacity would be considerably below the planned 34,500.
It was also reported that it was expected to be reduced to “about half the original size”.
While there is an acceptance that they won’t be able to deliver a stadium of 34,500, a number of alternatives are being explored.
To deliver a stadium of around 30,000 capacity, it would be radically different in its make-up from what is currently proposed.
Planning permission was granted on the basis of 26,500 seats and a terracing capacity of 8,000.
There is the option of reversing those numbers, with one seated stand and three that are terraced.
Whether even that is achievable with the money that’s available is one question mark, while there are potential issues around producing something significantly different from what planning permission was granted on.
The GAA are currently working with planners to ensure that the planning does not lapse as it’s due to this summer. Clearing and piling work has begun on the site, but it’s still unclear exactly what constitutes the start of its construction phase.
No main contractor has yet been appointed. Heron Brothers had been in place alongside England-based Buckingham Group but when the latter went into administration, the contract was cancelled in late 2023.
There are a number of major issues around the idea of a ‘half-sized’ stadium.
Anything short of St Tiernach’s Park’s current capacity of 28,500 would lead to questions over whether the outlay on a new stadium is justified when it’s smaller than the existing home of Ulster finals.
To build it smaller than that opens the possibility of it only hosting provincial semi-finals, which in turn would almost certainly to further wrangling on the financial and political side.
The funding that was agreed by the UK Treasury and the NI Executive were both specifically for Casement Park and on the expectation that it would be a ‘regional’ stadium.
If it is downgraded and becomes a stadium for Antrim, the reality is that both of those funding pots – worth over £100m between them – would no longer be available.
Certainly the UK Treasury’s contribution would be expected to disappear while the political wrangling that has taken place in Stormont over the last 13 years is unlikely to subside in the event of a capacity reduction.
A reduced capacity stadium could end up heavily reliant on goodwill from the Irish government around leaving some or all of the €50m they’ve pledged to Casement Park in place.