Bray Wanderers chairman Denis O’Connor has claimed that he is willing to walk away from the club if a new investor or group wants to come in to run it.
O’Connor took the extraordinary step of issuing a press release at half-time in Bray’s Premier Division clash with Dundalk last Friday, which warned that the club’s future is at stake because of low attendances.
The crisis enveloping the Seagulls then escalated with the PFAI claiming that players have been advised to look for new clubs as there is only money in the coffers to cover next week's wages.
Bray’s future remains very much in doubt with questions about whether they can pay their players beyond this weekend.
O’Connor has blamed the crisis on poor attendances, after the club invested in their squad before the start of the current season.
The Bray chairman met with the Seagulls Members Club last night and claimed that he is ready to hand the reins over to someone else if they are willing to run the club.
Speaking on East Coast FM, O’Connor said: "If someone else wants to come in and do the show, I’ll walk because I’m literally getting nothing out of this. This is the big innuendo that’s out there.
"They had Seagulls Trusts and Bird Feathers and all other kinds of things out there raising money. Show me the money and we’ll go.
"I actually said if someone wants to come in and take this club, we’ll gladly walk. This perception that’s out there, that we’re holding onto a golden nugget - get real!
"We’re holding onto a mess, a pile of mess that no-one has ever seen and we’re trying to sort it out.
"We have one of 12 teams in the Premier League of Ireland based here in Wicklow. If people don’t want it, well let’s get real and let’s wrap it up and move on."
O’Connor has been seen as a divisive figure by many supporters of the club and the point was put to him that his presence at the Carlisle Grounds may be one of the reasons that supporters are staying away.
The Bray chairman dismissed this notion and again questioned the appetite for watching Premier Division soccer in area, although he did admit that an early row in his tenure may have had repercussions.
"The first argument I had at Bray Wanderers was about people getting in free to the ground believe it or not," he said. "That was the first big row and that caused untold damage.
"Then people said I fired someone from a PA job, I proved since I didn’t. All this rubbish goes around ‘attack Denis O’Connor’, but you know what? I’m beginning to wonder if we opened up the gates free would they even come in and support the team anymore.
"If someone wants to come on today and say ‘we’ll put the money in and we’ll run the club’, come on down!"
"If you’re not with us, then that’s fine I genuinely am happy to walk. At the weekend I was even saying, ‘what is the point in continuing this?’
"If the critics want to come in and run it, then come on in. It’s a wide open door because it’s not easy stuff and nobody’s getting paid out of it, nobody is getting capital appreciation out of it, all we’re getting is hardship 24/7."
O’Connor again pointed to poor attendances as being the driving force behind the current crisis at the club and claimed that all the problems could be traced back to people not paying through the turnstiles.
"Your ideal home attendance should be 1,500 people," he said. "Now the population of Bray is 35,000 and the population of Wicklow is 140,000 and we get a lot of support from South Dublin believe it or not.
"Now it’s not too unrealistic to say ‘here’s our plan’. We achieved every part of our plan except the support did not follow us. It did not follow us through the gate and it did not follow in advertising and sponsorship."
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