Portadown Football Club welcomed the statement yesterday from Communities Minister Gordon Lyons. The long-awaited process has promised on delivering the Northern Ireland Football Fund – something which we have all felt was long overdue. Its purpose in assisting and progressing clubs who are at the forefront of communities throughout the country.
However, we as a club are bitterly disappointed to learn we have been unsuccessful in advancing to the next stage, this is devastating for our directors and supporters who have invested substantial time, money and effort in relation to our application.
Our application was submitted with the understanding that the best scoring bids would receive funding based purely on score, in line with the same scoring matrix for all three strands and the guidance notes, with no reference made of a weighting towards any tier over another or bids with significantly lower scores being advanced ahead of bids with much higher scores.
We are of the belief that our score was higher than many of those that have ended up progressing to the next stage which is shattering for the football club and especially the local community.
We believe this decision was made after the bids were submitted and scored and thereby as a result has favoured some other bids.
We will now review the outcome along with our options and will update supporters in due course.