A Cuckoo in the Nest

    Just one hour ago, a Mr. Pat Keegan (I think) delivered court documents/summons/whatever to me on behalf of Mr. Richard Stapleton, the solicitor of Garda David Dully and, depending on who you talk to, a relative or not of Mr. Michael O'Connor (the man in the video). I have no intention of opening the envelope, but I will continue to fight for justice by whatever means are available to me ... including here. I'm no longer scared of them or their courts. 

  I don't know how much it cost to travel to the World Cup from Ireland, but the American company Sports Travel Fan was doing an eight night stay and three matches for $11,685 (or E10,636).  

 Based on the tax returns of Athlone Town AFC CLG and making the surely reasonable assumption that its two directors split their 'remuneration' 50-50, Michael O'Connor paid himself E37,500 in 2019, E37,500 in 2020 and E37,500 in 2021. There is no reason to think he didn't pay himself a further couple of E37,500s for 2022 and 2023 - I suspect more.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                It is now almost certain that Mr. O'Connor has additionally been paid the balance of the E30,457 which he claims was loaned by him to his company, and that his wife has been paid the balance of the E44,457 which he claims was loaned by her to his company. Mr. O'Connor has also been employed by either the original club or his company for each of the past eleven years. As he is still referred to as a Director of Football, long after the football side of the operation was sold to Valeo Futbol Club, this employment has the look of a vehicle of convenience. 

 At a conservative estimate then, the O'Connor household has pulled in more than E300,000 over the five years that the interviewer mentions (No payments to Mr. O'Connor were reported prior to 2019, but those were unaudited accounts and the original 2018 accounts differ so radically from the restated version that they are difficult to take seriously - see graphs in 'Follow the Money', 2/12/2022). 

 O'Connor's bullshit is flawless. It does not come with the twinkly eyes which have made Irish bullshit famous the world over. It would be impossible to identify as bullshit at all were it not for information which Mr. O'Connor himself has chosen to make public (as a successful ploy towards liberating capital from the Irish Sea or Valeo operations) in his company's accounts. 

 All that said, the bullshit is of a similar standard to what I have experienced from, for example, traveller gangs, junior counsel (the seniors seldom resist the urge to twinkle) and a Galway girl who works the Dunnes Stores Irishtown car park with a tale of a stolen phone and wallet.  

 

 

 I've been as guilty as anyone else in promoting the idea that Mr. Hayden was wearing the trousers in this marriage from hell. It is impossible to justify that opinion now. O'Connor has almost certainly taken more than Hayden in each of the past eleven years. That is an unarguable demonstration of where the real power lies. 

 O'Connor's coming out of the shadows to deliver his 'We are Drowning' address likely serves more than one purpose. The first is obviously to soften up the media towards pressuring a politician to divert taxpayer money into Mr. O'Connor's company. The second would also require close media supervision - the creation of a narrative of financial crisis in order to prepare the way for the sale of the stadium. The plans for sale were revealed by the Athlone solicitors Martin Egan and Dara Hayden to the Miltown Malbay solicitor Neil McNelis in 2018.  

When O'Connor talks about ''the club'', he can only mean his company. This is because his company does not have a controlling interest in any football club. It is a 30% stakeholder in one of the Athlone Towns, a minority or nil stakeholder in another; and although it can claim an entitlement (albeit fraudulently secured) to run the financial affairs of the third Athlone Town, it cannot own any part of that club or claim to run it as a right, because it is a private members' club whose members have not voted since 2018 on their governance. 

 The clubs themselves are phantom entities. They have no meetings because they have no members. As there are no members to report to, there are no limits on what Messrs. O'Connor and Hayden can pay themselves. And there are now no checks on what happens to all the cash that goes into the clubs, since there are no longer any members to watch that none of it goes into back pockets. 

 The pretence of running a club is necessary until all of the capital investments and proceeds from the sale of the property are worked through. In order to get away with it, they require the continuing assistance of the media, be they compromised or clueless, and of the football regulator, which is unashamedly complicit (the FAI is refusing to reveal the full name of the club which won its Women's FAI Cup - surely a first for any football association).

 There were three members of Mr. O'Connor's company prior to 2019 - his good self, Mr. Hayden and Garda Dully. As Dully was particularly close to Hayden during those years, it was surprising that O'Connor was even then doing best of the three, and doing so by a distance. Quite why Mr. Hayden chose to defer to O'Connor's financial interests when he was in no way bound (by contract or court order) to do so remains a mystery.  It would have been a simple matter to replace O'Connor as director, a hundred times easier than what it took to scare football fans away from the club and replace them with friends and family members in 2017. 

  Remember that we are now no longer talking about a seven figure sum - re the addition of Emelio Williams' investment to Eric Mao's - but eight figures.

 If Mr. O'Connor's welcome but far from clear information is correct, Miriam O'Connor and Liam Gaffey have become company members since 2018. The change would almost certainly give O'Connor a majority if and when it comes to distributing the take from the sale of the property. This however comes with a caveat, as he is unlikely to secure its rezoning without Mr. Hayden's help. 

 O'Connor's courage or lack of same is also an unknown. Coming out from behind the skirts of his barrister and police friends at the eleventh hour may remind us of the fabled wren that rose from the feathers of the eagle. But our little wren may find it a bit windy when he realises he is no longer protected by the diplomatic immunity that applies to all Irish barristers (with the qualified exception of Patrick Russell) in matters of fraud.   

 I was not familiar with Mr. O'Connor before seeing his video, though I had heard a few stories. He has gone out of his way to avoid meeting me and even failed to turn up to his own court case. The dirty work there was left to David Dully, John Hayden, brother-in-law Damien Milton and ex-employer (through Athlone Town FC) Paddy McCaul - none of whose lawyers were paid by the beneficiaries. 

 

 I found the video (below in full) very difficult to watch, knowing the effect that this individual and his army of enablers have had on my family.  It is hard to stomach his for-profit company being given a platform on the national broadcaster while our charitable purposes company has been banned by our own local media from responding to it or explaining our position in any way since 2015.

  

 Mr. Hayden at least can legitimately claim to have given some years to 'the club' for no financial reward. But it is apparently Mr. O'Connor alone who now stands on the cusp of extraordinary wealth. Should he pull it off, I don't know of a greater or more invisible heist in our country's history. 

 I don't dispute that his scheme is quite clever, but there is a high bar in the heist game. I have explained its workings in some detail here, an analysis which has never been challenged. 

 In the popular Spanish show La Casa de Papel, the people rally behind the heist while Official Spain melts down. In the less popular Irish show Nead na Cuaiche, the people get robbed while Official Ireland rallies behind the heist. It's a funny old world.

                                       

The interview starts out straightforwardly: ''Nothing gets through the club without your touch on it'',  a factual statement. Things get more problematic when Mr. O'Connor starts talking.  

With the advantage of having completed a crash course in advanced bullshit at the academy in Inns Quay, I will endeavour to provide a translation for a few remarks not already explained. 

0:36 ''This was an under-17 Women's National League Team. I had worked out that the team would act as a draw for underage girls to sign up for more or less the same thing they could get at Bealnamulla LFC for a fraction of the cost, in other words for a new set of parents to be milked. We could poach some of Bealnamulla's players while we were at it.''

2:00 ''Me and Johnny can work on him (or her) if he (or she) doesn't let political strings be pulled. Once committed to talking to us, we just keep hassling - it always works. Then tell the Westmeath that it is 'the club' that has secured the taxpayers' money, not my company.''

3:27 ''There's another racket going, this one involving the dumbass suckers in the AIT.''