Outgoing chairman Murray believes Treaty United takeover is right move for the club
TREATY UNITED will soon enter into a new era with the club being taken over by Canadian investment group Tricor Pacific Capital.
The club will also be co-owned by incoming CEO, and current women's player, Ciara McCormack. The group have pledged to invest significantly in both the men's and women's side of the club.
Outgoing chairman, Conn Murray, says that the takeover secures the long-term future of the Mid-West League of Ireland club.
"The reality was that we had a number of seasons where we survived financially but it was always a challenge,” said Murray when news of the takeover became public a few days ago.
"It was a struggle every year. Being a non-for-profit organisation, you're starting from scratch every year and while we built the foundation of the club, we all recognised that we needed something else to go to that next level.
"That of course was can we attract people to invest in the club. With the board's permission, I entered the conversation last February/March with the representatives of Tricor and we got into conversations and due diligence from there on.
"We knew what we wanted. We wanted a strong academy in the Mid-West. We wanted an ethos of community development. We were like minded in our approach and things advanced from there."
Treaty formed as a club in 2020 with Murray as head of the board. The club didn't enter a men's team in year one but did compete in the Women's National League.
The men's team came on board in year two and began with a 0-0 draw against Bray Wanderers under the captaincy of Jack Lynch. Murray believes that the board have done a good job in running the club up until now in a sustainable way.
"We said from the beginning that we, as a group, would attempt to develop in a sustainable way. We kept our costs down. We kept ourselves pretty much as an amateur club, while being very competitive and I think that's down to the managers of the respective teams.
"But we did recognise, for football to go in the longer term, it needs an alternative. It needs more. Certainly, everyone who volunteered their time, their effort and sweat and sometimes their tears, built it to what it was. Thankfully, the opportunity is there for it to grow.
"There will be no massive changes, I believe, but it will continue to build on what is there because that is the only way that football will sustain itself into the future.
"If people get overly excited and think that we are going to win league titles overnight, things will collapse once again. We have got to manage this on a step by step basis, which is where we came from."
Murray has urged the people of Limerick and the greater Mid-West area to get behind the new owners so that they have every chance of succeeding.
"There is a heritage attached to football in Limerick," Murray added. "That is evident by the amount of actual participants at underage and at junior level across the Mid-West.
"There has to be an outlet for that talent and the only way that it can actually succeed is that we have a successful senior team within the region itself and something for people to aspire to in terms of their own football career. That would be, in my view, a professional team operating out of the Mid-West."
Murray says that he thoroughly enjoyed his role with Treaty United from its inception to where the club has already grown to in such a short space of time.
"It was daunting at the start but I was lucky to be surrounded by exceptionally good people at board level. I took great pride in seeing that jersey taking to the pitch. The highlight for me was the FAI Cup run in 2022. Getting so close to an FAI Cup final for Treaty was phenomenal."