Owners are still looking at options to improve Oriel

DUNDALK FC chairman Mike Treacy says the club are set to weigh up their options regarding the possible upgrade of Oriel Park once ongoing work in the Youth Development Centre is complete in the coming weeks.

The club are understood to have spent around €500,000 over the close season to upgrade the YDC for the benefit of the players. This included upgrades to the gym, new locker rooms, a new video analysis room, a new kitchen and canteen facility and work on the bar.

While the average supporter will not directly benefit from this financial outlay, Treacy told The Argus before Friday night’s season opener with Sligo Rovers that possible improvements to the ground as a whole would continue to be explored.

‘We’ve been thinking about it since we came in,’ he said when asked about possible renovation work on Oriel Park.

‘We’re not blind. I said it before and I’ll say it again, we’ve the worst away section in the league. That’s not new but for me the most important thing was enhancing the facilities for the players first and then obviously when that’s complete there will be time to assess our options for Oriel Park itself.’

The 31-year-old Peak6 employee said he felt the club had done the right thing by prioritising facilities for the players who are in Oriel every day.

‘We’re trying to set a high standard on and off the pitch,’ he said.

‘We have big infrastructure plans but for us, we need to build Championship quality facilities.

‘These guys spend every single day here. I know most people are here on Friday night but these guys are here Saturday through to Thursday. They’re here every single day and it was really important for us to create a place that they wanted to be at every single day.

‘We’re finishing things up there. We’re pleased with the progress and we think it’s something like that that really catapults us to become a European club, not just an Irish club.’

The big news out of Oriel Park over the winter was undoubtedly the departure of manager Stephen Kenny. Treacy said he wished the new Republic of Ireland U21 manager well in his current and future role as the country’s senior boss but insisted he always expected the 47-yearold to move on to bigger things.

‘I wouldn’t say it was that much of a shock,’ he said when asked about the manager’s exit last November.

‘When we came into the club we always expected Stephen to move on to greater things. We thought that might be in two or three years rather than in 10 months but we started succession planning in the middle of last year by locking Vinny and Ruaidhrí to contracts so there has been a lot of continuity. That’s a word that has been used a lot here and we’re really looking forward now to this season to see what this group can do together.’

Treacy said the club briefly weighed up the various directions they could take following Kenny’s departure but said it was unanimous that they felt Vinny Perth was the man to step up into the hot seat at Oriel Park.

‘We conducted a thorough process but we built something great here and we’re continuing to build something great so why break up what we’ve built?,’ he said.

‘If you think about the League of Ireland each season, you go out and compete and try to win the trophy. When you win that trophy it’s not just about that season, you’ve just bought yourself a ticket to Champions League football the following year so it’s almost like two seasons in each season. We wanted to keep the group together and we’ve added John Gill as a first-team coach for the experience he brings and I’m excited to get kicking on tonight and see where we go with it.

‘When you give someone like John the tools to succeed like we have it’s exciting to think about the possibilities, not only domestically but in Europe.’

Treacy admitted European progression was a key target this year and said being seeded for the first qualifying round of the Champions League was a major plus.

‘Obviously it provides you with an advantage in the first couple of rounds. You’re playing weaker opposition before you progress to the later rounds where you’re really playing the behemoths of Europe.

‘We’re happy to be seeded this year and hopefully our performance this season will add to our seeding next year.

‘It’s really just been motivating the way all the players and backroom staff have reacted since coming back in this year. All of us are just obsessed with success. We want to do great things. We want to win the league again but we want to do something that no one has done before as well.’