Tom Coughlan (football)

Tom Coughlan was chairman of Cork City from 2008 to 2010. Originally taking over the club following examinership in 2008, he was banned from the game in 2009 for twelve months. Due to accounting failures, the holding company of Cork City, Cork City Investments Fc Limited, was denied a League of Ireland Premier Division licence and later wound up.

Coughlan first came to local prominence in 1997 when he ran for election to the Dáil as a candidate for the Progressive Democrats in Cork South–Central. He was not elected.

In August 2008, Cork City went into examinership with debts of up to €1.3 million. The club had two potential buyers, but by the end of September, Coughlan was the preferred bidder. Cork City FC was taken out of examinership on 16 October 2008, with the club being taken over by Coughlan, and within two weeks the club were in the Setanta Sports Cup Final. They won this competition, and received prize money of €150,000. One of the first of many major decisions made by Coughlan at the club was to sack manager Alan Mathews on 9 December 2008. Mathews later claimed he had been sacked by phone with Coughlan telling him "out of the blue" that he was no longer a part of the club. Mathews threatened legal action - but it was not pursued in the courts. After City came out of examinership, Paul Doolin was named manager in January 2009.

In May 2009, the club were issued with a winding up order over unpaid taxes to the Revenue Commissioners. The club needed to raise €400,000 in a few weeks to keep the club from being wound-up. Despite raising some funds by selling some players, it was not enough, and the club was wound up on 27 July 2009. The club however successfully appealed the decision with the announcement of a friendly (and expected gate receipts) with Scottish club Celtic.

Around this time an issue arose before a game against St Pats in which the bus company would not take the team to the match - because the company had not been paid to do so. This resulted in what a player described as a "humiliating" plea from the team, as they sat stranded near the bus, on radio station Cork's 96FM for urgent donations from the general public to get them to the game on time.

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Wikipedia