Fresh bid for Cork City

Quintas has made a second offer to Tom Coughlan on behalf of Cork businessmen to take over troubled League of Ireland club Cork City.

In a statement released to RTÉ.ie tonight, the Cork-based financial services consultancy has confirmed that a bid has been made, led by Peter Gray and Michael O’Connell, and is completely separate to the previous offer which Quintas facilitated.

The proposal includes plans for FORAS, the Cork City Supporters Trust, to share in the ownership and management of the club.

Gray, a former sponsor of Millwall Football Club is a semi-retired businessman from Britain who now bases himself between London and Kinsale.

He is keen to help save the troubled Rebels: ‘I have a genuine love of football and believe that Cork has the potential to be a really successful club.’

O'Connell, meanwhile, is a former Chief Executive of Adidas in Ireland and owns Mocad Golf.

FORAS members will soon vote on whether they want to be part of the bid, their chairman John O’Sullivan was excited by the offer:

‘We support this move. This is a really exciting offer made by individuals who have the best interests of the club at heart.

‘We sincerely hope that the bid will succeed and we will put the chance to share in this new opportunity to our membership as soon as possible.’

Cork City will hold a press conference on Friday but it is thought that this is not in relation to the offer.

Coughlan must now decide in the coming days if the offer is acceptable, but time is running out with the winding-up order hearing from the Revenue Commissioners set for the High Court on Monday, as well as the League of Ireland licensing decision from the Independent Licensing Committee and FAI due the same day.