'Still hope' for clubs not successful in Football Fund

Gordon Lyons (centre) pictured with NIFL chairman Gerard Lawlor and IFA president Conrad Kirkwood at the launch of the Northern Ireland Football Fund in January

Communities Minister Gordon Lyons says there is "still hope" for clubs who are unsuccessful in Thursday's announcement regarding who will receive funding towards investing in the upgrading of their stadia and facilities.

The release of government finance to improve football grounds across Northern Ireland has been long-awaited, with £36.2m having been earmarked for that purpose as far back as 2011 under the Sub-Regional Stadia Programme.

In January this year, it was revealed that clubs were being invited to apply for a share of what was now titled the Northern Ireland Football Fund Performance Programme.

Clubs in the Premiership, Championship and Premier Intermediate leagues and NIFL Women's Premiership were eligible to apply, along with League of Ireland outfit Derry City.

Not all of the overall total is available to clubs as some of the money is also destined for grassroots facilities and the planned new National Football Centre.

"Clubs have been waiting for an announcement for 14 years, during which this has been held up," the communities minister told BBC Sport NI's Thomas Kane on Wednesday.

"I'm determined to drive it forward, determined to deliver. We will hear tomorrow [Thursday] about those clubs who are going to progress to the next stage.

"It's £36.2m that is available. I want to make sure that we spend as much of that as we can, that we make the improvements to clubs and that we actually make a difference."

Lyons explained that while some applications would be accepted to move forward to the next stage, others who were not successful would not be "getting knocked out just yet".

"I want to make sure that everybody has their needs met. Even those that aren't going through on Thursday will still have the opportunity in the future to move further down the process.

"There will be good news for the clubs that are moving forward but for those that weren't successful at this stage there is still hope. We will look to work with those that are moving forward and those that aren't."

Glentoran's Oval ground in east Belfast is one stadium which could benefit from the funding

The DUP minister added that the criteria for funding had been set by his department but the scoring had been verified independently.

Clubs could apply for grants of up to £1.5m, up to £6m and more than £6m but must demonstrate that they would contribute at least 5% of the project costs, this rising to 40% for council-owned grounds.

"I hope people will see this as a fair and transparent process. We set the criteria, we scored people against that criteria, it was done in the proper way.

"All this was scored outside of me. I had no involvement in that whatsoever, and this was assessed by someone independently as well.

"So people can have faith and confidence in the process and it will be good for football because after waiting for so long we're going to see real movement towards a really tangible difference in clubs right across Northern Ireland."

While the investment in the game has been welcomed by administrators at the Irish Football Association and Northern Ireland Football League, representatives of those governing bodies have emphasised the need for much greater finance to be made available.

Speaking in January, IFA president Conrad Kirkwood said that the funding fell "significantly short of the Department for Communities' own estimated £200 million required to upgrade performance club grounds, grassroots facilities and establish a National Football Centre for Northern Ireland".

The Communities minister told the BBC that he hoped the initial funding announcements on Thursday would only be the beginning.

"I'll always be looking to see what I can do within my own capital budget. There are other means by which we can look for finance, that might be borrowing, that might be private sector, or additional contributions from government.

"I'll explore all of that, see what we can do.

"But I see the need that exists in football and I want to make sure that that need is met because I want to make a difference in the lives of people who take part, players, spectators, those that use football clubs outside of Friday night and Saturday afternoon games."