Communities Minister Gordon Lyons reassures Irish League clubs Northern Ireland Football Fund will be 'open, fair and transparent process'

In what is the first strand of the Northern Ireland Football Fund, Lyons announced on Thursday evening that clubs from the three tiers of the men’s Irish League (Premiership, Championship and Premier Intermediate League), Women’s Premiership and Derry City are now all eligible to put forward their cases for infrastructure improvements.

After the money was initially pledged in 2011, football clubs on these shores have waited for crucial funds to help modernise their grounds and transform facilities which are not only important for on-the-pitch action, but also the wider community.

The NI Football Fund consists of three groups – Performance Programme, Grassroots Facilities Programme and the Creation of a National Football Centre with the Irish FA – with the former launched by Lyons at Ulster University’s campus in Belfast.

Clubs will also need to support at least 5% of the project costs themselves with applications closing on March 14, after which time due diligence will be undertaken and business cases finalised for selected applications.

There had been fears at clubs lower down the Irish League pyramid that so-called bigger sides would benefit from the majority of investment or be prioritised, but Lyons insists that won’t be the case.

"I've a very clear message to clubs which is we're going to have an open, fair and transparent process,” he said. “Clubs are going to know exactly what is expected of them and everybody will be held to the same standard.

"I hope that brings some comfort to clubs that have had questions around this, but when people see everything that is revealed they'll recognise that everything is taken into consideration and it is fair."

Although there is no timeline which Lyons can provide for when money will ultimately be dished out to clubs, he’s hoping to bid for even more than the £36.2million which has been initially pledged – it’s estimated that around £200m would be required to complete all projects throughout the three strands.

“I see this as rolling investment,” added Lyons. “We will continue to bid for more funding so that we can be in a position to continue to meet the needs of football in Northern Ireland.

"Even if we had an unlimited budget today we wouldn't have the capacity to do everything that needs to be done at the around 80 clubs that would need it. We don't have the ability to do everything at once so let's make sure this is a rolling scheme and we keep going.

"I want to do everything I can at my end to make sure this goes out as quickly as possible. I've put additional resources in to get to this stage as quickly as we could...some of this is outside my control and is now over to the clubs.

"They need to get the proper approvals in place, have their business cases together, have planning permission before construction can begin, but we're not leaving them to that themselves.

"We want to make sure there's assistance from the department as well. We want to work in partnership with people and don't want it to be about winners or losers, pass or fail, we want to help everybody through the process so that they can meet their needs."

After nearly 14 years of waiting, clubs now finally have a roadmap towards potential investment and Lyons is delighted to end a long period of uncertainty.

“This was a very exciting announcement when it was first made and people have been waiting on it and have expectations,” he said. “I get the sense from all the clubs I've been speaking to that even with the difficulties and challenges that lie ahead, what they were looking for more than anything was some certainty.

"They wanted to be told when this is going to happen, what the process is going to be, what we need to do, and that's what we're delivering.

"It's a good news story because we're getting the process out there and people will know what the application process looks like. That uncertainty is over and that will be welcomed by everybody."