Inside the £6m Plan That Nearly Moved Wimbledon to Dublin

An Irish consortium once prepared a £6 million bid for 74% of Wimbledon as part of an attempt to move the Premier League club to Dublin, according to a detailed BBC Sport account of the abandoned plan. The proposal developed in the mid-1990s while chairman Sam Hammam was struggling to secure a permanent home for Wimbledon in the London borough of Merton.

Hammam had owned Wimbledon since 1981, but efforts to build an all-seater stadium locally had failed. The club had shared Crystal Palace's Selhurst Park since 1991, an arrangement that satisfied neither side. Despite the uncertainty away from the field, Wimbledon were established in the top division under Joe Kinnear and had finished sixth in the 1993-94 season.

The Dublin idea began after Ticketmaster Ireland executive Tommy Higgins read about the dispute over Wimbledon's future. Higgins knew property developer Owen O'Callaghan held planning permission for a 40,000-seat stadium outside Dublin but lacked an anchor tenant. He later joined forces with businessman Maurice Cassidy, broadcaster and former Republic of Ireland player Eamon Dunphy, and U2 manager Paul McGuinness to revive the proposal after an initial meeting produced no progress.

Members of the consortium attended Wimbledon's match against Manchester United at Selhurst Park on 17 August 1996, when David Beckham scored his famous goal from near the halfway line. They were preparing their offer for a controlling stake, but the possible relocation quickly met resistance. Wimbledon supporters displayed placards declaring that a Dublin move would mean the club's death, while the Football Association of Ireland feared the arrival of a Premier League team would damage its domestic competition.

Talks continued for 18 months before communication with Hammam stopped. Higgins retained an unsigned contract, but the consortium's bid was overtaken when Hammam sold 80% of Wimbledon to Norwegian businessmen Bjorn Rune Gjelsten and Kjell Inge Rokke for £26 million. That price was more than four times the Irish group's proposed investment. The planned Dublin stadium was never built, and a shopping centre now occupies the intended site.

Wimbledon ultimately moved to Milton Keynes in 2004, while supporters established AFC Wimbledon in the community left behind. The new club began in the ninth tier and has since climbed to League One and returned to Plough Lane. The Dublin proposal therefore remains an unrealised branch of the club's history: a stadium project seeking a tenant, a London team seeking a home, and a takeover that never reached a signed agreement.