The Elephant in Every Room
I was given this thing a couple of weeks ago. I'm told that it's a WhatsApp voice note which was uploaded into a group chat. It comes from an unidentified son of John Hayden, who is one of the two directors of Athlone Town AFC CLG.
The word is that the whole town is (or was) talking about this, which is its most obvious point. As long as people are talking about ''the boys'' - which very much includes 'oooooh, aren't they terrible?' - ''the boys'' are controlling the narrative. Donald Trump understands this dynamic better than most.
It is such obvious bullshit (and could be seen as an attempt to put the O'Connor camp back in its place as beneficiaries of same rather than generators) that it is hard to work up the will to reply to it. But these are highly connected people whose bullshit is routinely believed, so I have little choice.
The message was presumably put together in haste as a response to my most recent post, which had just short of 4,000 views in a week. It does a lot of things quite effectively. It gaslights. It disinforms. It misdirects. And it threatens.
Here is a transcription of the voice note, followed by some comments. Enjoy.
(1) Aye, that's complete horse shite. That's your man Neil Molloy, that Paddy McCaul and the boys conned out of fucking E600,000. And then he thought he was sold the fucking football stadium, he wasn't sold the football stadium. There's more to that, man, that's only the tip of that ... that's going on years, man, this is. There's more to that. There is ... that man owes Athlone Town E1.3 million and there's also been a High Court writ ordered for him to cough up the funds.
(2) He brought Athlone Town, my father and Micky to the High Court. John and Micky won the case in the High Court.
(3) Also, he has to pay the High Court bill and basically cover my father's end of things and Micky's end of things.
(4) And also the club lost out on development grants as well. That fella, do you see when he mentions Richard Stapleton, Richard Stapleton? Richard Stapleton is the High Court enforcer of it. He is the solicitor for the High Courts. He never opened the letter.
(5) That man is going to be living on the streets, man, if he doesn't stop what he's doing and pay his fucking bills, man. He's fuck ... this fella is nuts, man, Neil Molloy.
(6) He was conned out of E600,000 by Paddy McCaul and Mattie Lough and the lads back in 2010.
(7) And he was ... he thought, he ... remember a couple of years ago, there was chains, they locked the gates, they locked the gates on the stadium. Your man said, there was no one in there till this bill is paid, he was owed rent for the stadium. What happened was, all the boys invested big money back in 2007, when the stadium was being built. They were short money. My father was approached and asked to put E50,000 in the pot, alright, and he said no, he didn't like the sound of things.
(8) Oh big businessmen ... Cieran Temple, Paddy McCaul, Mattie Lough ... Egan's Solicitors, there was loads of people.
(9) They all went and took out personal loans of E50,000 and put it into the club, right? Right, remember the day we won the league in 2013?
(10) My father went to collect the gate receipts, right, his first year in the chair. Mattie Lough robbed E14,000 off the gate. Robbed. He left with the bag, he took the cash and robbed it and left, because he was owed that E50,000 on the investment that he was after losing. And ... oh, I could talk to you for hours about this, man.
(11) But long story short, Micky O'Connor didn't fucking rip the club and he doesn't owe my dad E300k ... what the fuck is that all about? What happened there was, there was monies coming in. My father and Micky have been funding the club since 2013, right? And you're going to laugh when I tell you this.
(12) My father has about two and a half million gone. I know ... this is mental, right? Put it this way. My father was a wealthy man. My father is not a wealthy man anymore, right? All our inheritance is all after been sold, on the back of that club. My father, his company went into liquidation, right. My father had to settle a bill with Revenue for E2.4 million. My father hasn't a pot to piss in anymore. Cause he soaked, he put everything he had into that football club. And all he wants is for the town to back it. There's one for you.
(13) Micky O'Connor and his wife Miriam have been funding that place on credit cards. They're owed thousands. My father is owed a hell of a lot more than E300k. But it's not Micky that took the 300k, it's the running costs of the fucking place. That place costs E15 grand a week to run, fifteen grand a week. And everyone saying 'oh, get the boys out and they're not football people and they're not ...
(14) You name one other person that would put their hands in their pockets only the two boys, do you know what I mean? Your man Molloy there, on the other hand, he owes E1.3 million and he's not paying up.
(15) He's what ... there's a High Court writ enforced. His land's going to be confiscated. His house is going to be confiscated. Anything he owns is going to be confiscated. Just so you know, that fella we're talking about ... you know where Colm Quinn BMW is?
(16) He sold all that land in there for E26 million ... not short of it. But the boys are going after him now for all the money.''
[1] Daddy disagrees. John Hayden, speaking at a meeting of Athlone Town FC on June 28th, 2017, said ''Declan Molloy owns 98% of the company which holds the ownership of the stadium.''
The reconfiguring of the company in order that I could buy it was done by Russell, Brennan and Keane. The company's constitution was not changed in any way, therefore its most important articles - the ban on anyone from our end being remunerated and the primacy of the people of Athlone's right to beneficial ownership - were kept intact. Paddy McCaul, the other director Cieran Temple and the other members of the project team that I met were upfront about the financial risk they were in. Post the 2008 economic crash, it was a time of panic among many in the business class. Though sympathetic, this did not influence my decision to buy the company. The attendant danger that the stadium could have fallen into private hands did however influence my decision.
If Junior has any information to suggest that RBK behaved improperly in order to facilitate fraud by ''Paddy McCaul and the boys'' then he needs to share that information with the Gardai.
[2] This is a whole new level of bollocks. Getting all the participants in the High Court case wrong and putting them the wrong way around is quite an achievement. I couldn't imagine bringing another human being to court, though I believe there are occasions when it is justified. As everybody should know by now, Garda David Dully brought Athlone Town Stadium Ltd. to court.
At least Junior is surprisingly honest in acknowledging that Garda Dully and the club members (albeit many of them in with a shot at being dropped a few quid by the beneficiaries) were only ever useful idiots to serve the financial ambitions of ''John and Micky'' (the JAM ... or the Jammy Dodgers?). This should prove helpful when it finally comes to our being returned our legal expenses. I would not be comfortable with targeting Garda Dully, as he has a young family.
[3] This more than implies that, were ''the boys'' to secure the E1.3 million they are apparently currently targeting, the money would not go, as it should, to Garda Dully (for distribution by his solicitor to their three counsel) but into Mr. O'Connor's company.
Mr. O'Connor is clearly entitled to nothing, as he did not participate in the court case. Mr. Hayden was a deponent for Garda Dully, a position that is strictly unremunerated. Mr. Hayden may be entitled to payment for his filling in for Dully's counsel Mr. Durack BL on one occasion, though the presiding judge said he was ''not comfortable'' with the move. And if, as I've been told, Mr. Hayden, rather than the three counsel, drafted all of the affidavits for Messrs. Dully, Milton and himself, then it is a matter for Mr. Stapleton to arrange suitable payment.
[4] The ''club'' lost out on nothing and continues to get everything that's going.
[5] Having, many moons ago, had to spend a few nights on the streets and in a Salvation Army shelter in Dumfries and Belfast respectively, I have some understanding of what this threat means.
[6] I have never met Mattie Lough and, as far as I'm aware, he has never had any involvement with my company.
[7] That was the only occasion when I spoke (briefly) to Michael O'Connor. I asked him to shut down training because the stadium was not insured, we had not been paid any rent to insure it ourselves (the club was contractually obliged to insure it) and we would be held liable if anyone got hurt. Mr. O'Connor agreed that it was the right thing to do and asked everyone to leave. He sent me two text messages later that night, which contained the lines ''I am annoyed that you have been driven to it by the club that I am involved in. I closed up as you requested'' and ''God bless and again so sorry for the disrespect you have been shown''. I put the lock on the gate after everyone had left. It was cut off the next day.
[8] This gives the impression of conflict between the Hayden camp on one side and Cieran Temple, Paddy McCaul and Martin Egan on the other. With the partial exception of Mr. Temple (due to an unconnected dispute within Athlone Fianna Fail) this is entirely bogus. It is also a stunt they have pulled before - back in April or May 2019 - when my counsel Mr. Ryan BL and Mr. McCaul made a big to-do about one of John Hayden's sons posting something offensive about him on social media and Mr. McCaul's plans to sue him for defamation. This of course never happened.
Conspicuous conflict is a tactic regularly used by lawyers who are in cahoots with opposition figures. It happened so often during our case and during the match fixing scandal that, counterintuitively, I often only learned that guys were in bed with each other by their wanting to be seen to be fighting each other.
Mr. Lough's inclusion is intriguing. The question is whether or not he gave permission for his name to be used in this way.
[9] Nobody took out personal loans. The company took out loans from two banks, otherwise the Liam Gaffey Stand could not have been built. All but one of the project committee then guaranteed the loans, up to an individual maximum of E90,000. Mattie Lough was not one of the guarantors.
[10] On its own terms, this makes Mattie Lough look like a hero, and something of a Superman. I don't believe Dwayne Johnson could wrest a bag of cash away from one of these guys. When the absurdity of stealing from one entity to avenge a dispute with a different entity (and Mr. Lough's non-involvement with the second entity) is removed as a factor, he is then being accused of a very serious crime.
My information is that the money would be counted in the ticket office after a match, by the treasurer and one or two other committee members. The players' wages and/or expenses would be taken from this money, as usually would payments for the referee and linesmen. On the bad days, committee members might have to make up a shortfall, something one or two of the committee members never did (can anyone guess who?). On the very good days like the one Junior refers to, there would be a significant surplus which Mr. John Croughan and no one else would deposit in the night safe of one of the banks.
If the money was stolen before it was counted, then the question arises as to where the E14,000 figure comes from. If stolen after it was counted, then questions still need to be answered as to who witnessed the theft and why it was never reported to the Gardai. ''The boys'' were quick enough to call in the guards when two 'burglaries' purported to disappear important contracts and financial records. Why did the Club Secretary Garda David Dully choose not to initiate an investigation?
[11] I did not say that Mr. Hayden was owed anything by anyone. I said that Mr. O'Connor was getting a bigger slice of the pie. The pie belongs to the people of Athlone.
[12] I don't think there is any secret that John Hayden went bankrupt on the back of badly timed investments at the latter end of the Celtic Tiger period. There is evidence that he paid a relatively small amount, something less than E500, to the club in 2013. I have seen no evidence of any further support. The accounts, as signed by Mr. Hayden, put his total claim of loans to his and Mr. O'Connor's company at E37,657, some way short of E2.4 million and E6,800 less than that of the housewife Miriam O'Connor. The accounts say (see below, noting that the company was founded in 2015 and took over all of the club's debts in 2017) that there were no loans made by any of the members prior to 2018. The accounts also say that there were no payments to the directors prior to 2019.
Loans might well have been sought in the hand-to-mouth years which preceded both Mao's investment and the turning of underage training into a nice little earner. But they weren't. Now that the cat is out of the bag about their plans to sell the stadium - something Junior does not attempt to deny - it is presumably necessary to come up with a strategy to mitigate that damage. Throwing out a figure of E2.4 million today can be seen as an indicator of what is intended to happen a few years down the line. And a time travelling E2.4 million which identifies as a loan can provide immunity to taxation, if the law can be bent a little (and Irish law is very bendy when you know the right people).
Some degree of speculation is necessary considering the secrecy under which these people operate. Outlandish as my predictions and interpretations may appear to the innocent minded, my record stands for itself. If I am again correct, then Mr. Hayden's take from the project will be in the region of E3 million, or around 25% of the total. The take-home share would be closer to 35% if adjusted for Mr. O'Connor's (circa) 75% alone being exposed to taxation.
[13] So, there is no actual record of any transfers from the O'Connors to Athlone Town AFC CLG? Nobody thought to put anything on paper for the loaning of such large sums to a company that has free legal advice and professional services? Does the same apply to the Hayden and Dully loans? Were they made by credit card too (Mastercard, I presume, since they are clearly priceless)? E112,571 in total, and that does not include the last two years and three months.
[14] He has already said that I, Cieran Temple, Paddy McCaul, Mattie Lough, Martin Egan (though he only mentions his company) and unnamed members of the stadium project committee have done exactly that.
[15] A trust fund baby threatening to drive an Irishman from his home and farm in order to restore his inheritance looks like something that was calculated to trigger violence. There are at last signs that the tables are turning ... so sorry Boys, no way am I rising to that bait.
The land has been targeted from the start. This dates to May 2017, when I got angry with the FAI CEO John Delaney (more jam) and stupidly told him that I would sell the farm if necessary. This information was obviously passed on to the barristers, who, sure as eggs is eggs, pulled a cheeky red out of the wine cellar and came up with a plan.
[16] Probably the hardest thing about this battle is that I have had to sacrifice my privacy in order to correct these people's disinformation, and it now appears that I have no option but to reveal my financial affairs in public.
Being a family of small town lawyers, the Haydens already know (and knew long before 2011) that I got E7.3 million for my land. I didn't go looking for the money but would have been a fool to refuse it. I have managed the money in accordance with the values with which I was raised.
[The following numbers are approximate, coming from memory] E300k of it went to lawyers (a story in itself), E1.8 million to Revenue, E2.2 million on a very good farm (now a family farm), E200k on a house, a further E150k to Revenue, E200k on farm improvements, E290k on various charities and sports clubs, E220k on an apartment for another person's use (which will soon be signed over to that person), E90k on gifts, E75k to the cooperative, E980k on the stadium company (including legal costs) and E54k on loans to its ex-directors (which they are refusing to honour). Against this, there have been various conventional investments and a big project which went belly up while creating a profit. It is vital, I believe, for wealth to be recycled locally, otherwise the economy will stall]
The end result is that is that I have something in the high six figures in the bank. Though I hope to get it down to E100k after I have finally finished with these chancers, right now I need some insurance and will be holding on to that amount. Having their moles everywhere, they would already know what I have. That is why they are setting the extortion attempt at two houses and more above that level.
I have been primed (by God or fate) for this fight since I was seven years old. That was when I learned the true nature of power, after opening the wrong door (in the presence of a teacher) in Cornamaddy NS. Behind the door, a very distressed boy was being sexually abused by the then most powerful man in Athlone - James Prunty, the Bishop's Administrator of St. Mary's Parish. The door was quickly shut on the boy and the various punishments that came my way over the next eight months or so impressed on me that I had done something unforgiveable.
I've had to learn the stark difference between how these power groups present themselves to the public and the ugly reality. A really dark side of human nature on which they thrive comes about from the isolating of their targets. The targets are often driven to suicide or some other form of brokenness (even former Justice Minister Alan Shatter struggled to cope with and failed to understand what they did to him) and people tend to enjoy watching that unfold. I wish people could understand that what the bishops did and the barristers are doing affects all of us.
The powerful do not like being exposed and will go to almost any lengths to stop it. That is why, in our case, the legal establishment has effectively given a special dispensation to Messrs. O'Connor and Hayden, telling them to do their worst in the process of extracting the most.
Once I had accepted that they were never going to allow a rigged case be ''unravelled'' (Judge Richard Humphreys' word), the only strategy open to me has been to lure as many of them as possible into declaring for positions of obvious corruption. From there, my job has been to do everything I can to expose them and create something that will blow it all wide open. The opposition can rightly claim that they have a fair shot at getting away with it, because of their ability to hit those shots with judges on the golf course. But they cannot claim that there is insufficient material to make a scandal.
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