The fallout from last night's incident between Sinn Féin TD, Jonathan O'Brien, and members of An Garda Siochana, has taken an interesting twist in the last hour after Cork City FC released a statement absolving their former chairman of any fault that would breach stadium regulations.
Gardaí intervened at Turners Cross after a group of Cork City supporters at last night's SSE Airtricity Premier League game with St. Pats, unfurled a flag daubed with the words 'Delaney Out', thought to be a reference to FAI Executive Vice President, John Delaney. The group were asked first by club stewards to take down the flag before the police force became involved and Mr O'Brien was removed from the stadium.
Having released a statement just after noon saying that they intended on speaking to all parties involved in the incident before releasing an updated second statement at tea-time.
Further to our statement issued earlier (below), the club wish to confirm that it has reviewed CCTV footage of the incident that occurred at Turner’s Cross yesterday.
In the time since the end of the game last night, the club has also spoken to all parties involved in the matter.
At lunchtime, members of club staff and the Board of Management met with Mr. Jonathan O’Brien T.D., who was, for a short time, removed from the stadium last night. Having spoken to Mr. O’Brien and reviewed the CCTV footage, the club wishes to confirm that there was no breach of stadium regulations by him. This was a frank and positive discussion, and both parties are happy that the matter is now concluded to their mutual satisfaction.
In addition to the meeting with Mr. O’Brien, the club now plans to have further discussions with all key stakeholders involved in advance of our next home fixture with the intention of ensuring the best match night experience possible for our supporters.
As well as his role of chairman at the second-city club, Mr O'Brien is a founding member of FORAS, a supporters trust organisation at the three-time League of Ireland champions.
He is currently the sitting TD for Cork North-Central.
