THE news that the FAI is experiencing some difficulty in accounting for funds accruing from ticket sales from the 1994 World Cup will come as little surprise to anybody who visited the single bedroom on the seventh floor of the Orlando South Hilton during the course of that tournament.

There, with the furniture overturned, with the floor carpeted in many thousands of dollars worth of cash and loose tickets, the Football Association of Ireland was coping with the box office pressures arising from the world's biggest football tournament.

Several fans made the journey to the seventh floor on the pretext of inquiring about tickets, just to see this mess of money and tickets - an emblem of the FAI failure to meet the demands of the new era of success and achievement which it had inadvertently brought upon itself by appointing Jack Charlton as national team manager in 1986.

The strain of a small time association struggling in the flow of big time football was evident yesterday when at the end of a week of unprecedented turmoil in the FAI, another chink of light was shed on the activities of the association before, during and alter the 1994 World Cup.

Mr Joe Delaney, the Tipperary man who handled the FAI security arrangements during the World Cup and during all the team's visits to major tournaments in the past, released a "personal statement" on FAI notepaper still bearing the name of a departed official. His statement acknowledges for the first time that the FAI laced a "shortfall" of funds as a result of dealings in tickets before and during the 1994 World Cup. This shortfall, Mr Delaney states, amounted to £110,000.

Mr Delaney, now the association's honorary treasurer, states that while acting under the instructions of his predecessor in that position, Mr Charlie Walsh, he dealt in tickets on behalf of the FAI. These tickets had been ordered by the association in spring 1994 for World Cup games not involving the Republic of Ireland.

The association wished to use the tickets to barter with its counterparts in other countries to maximise the availability of tickets for Irish games.

Mr Delaney states that in 1994, one of these agents with whom I dealt on behalf of the FAI proved less than trustworthy. The FAI was facing a shortfall of £110,000." He goes on to state that "the error of judgment" having been his, he felt honour bound to personally meet this shortfall".

Mr Delaney's statement flies directly in the face of claims by the beleaguered officer board of the FAI that there was no discrepancy arising out of World Cup ticket sales "not now, not ever".

IT WAS acknowledged at a press conference at the association's headquarters on Wednesday night that the FAI had dealt in tickets during the World Cup with an agent named Tio Marcos. The colourful reputation of this latest addition to the cast is enhanced by his splendid nickname George The Greek.

As with practically every development in the saga of the post Charlton FAI, the statement from Mr Delaney raises more questions then it answers. Bartering with other associations for tickets is one thing. Selling the tickets to commercial agents is something different entirely, an exercise in judgment and ethics.

Football associations are authorised to deal with a number of dealerships (usually those operating commercial packages for the corporate market) during tournaments. Dealing with unauthorised but colourful figures carries obvious dangers and it is difficult to fathom the motivation behind choosing such a course of action.

Mr Delaney's statement leaves it unclear also as to how the discrepancy eventually arose. We do not know whether the person with whom he dealt issued a bad cheque or forged tickets or was simply given a large number of tickets by the FAI on the basis that he could be relied upon to pay for them later.

Questions must also be asked about the timetable of events after it became clear the FAI "was facing a shortfall". Mr Delaney's only reference to this comes in the last sentence of his statement when he says somewhat bafflingly: "I now realise that I should have informed the FAI senior council of these facts in November of 1994."

It is surprising in the extreme that the FAI senior council was not aware of a problem of this magnitude at that stage or even before. No information was available last night as to when exactly Mr Delaney informed the association of the precise nature of the problems he was experiencing with the "less than trustworthy" agent.

Mr Michael Morris resigned his position as chief accountant to the FAI last week, becoming the first of the association's full time managers to part company with his employers. On the same day, the association's chief executive, Mr Sean Connolly, resigned, the FAI claiming initially that Mr Connolly had received no severance pay and conceding later that a package had been arranged.

Finally the association's director of coaching, Mr Joe McGrath, departed throwing the games structure into further disarray.

THE focus of attention has, however, been switched from the association's employees to the mandarins who have effectively made Irish soccer their freedom over the last couple of decades.

In the light of the accelerating pace of developments, several members of the five man FAI officer board are understood to be "considering their positions".

The pressure to go before they are pushed at a meeting of the 51 member FAI senior council on March 8th has become intense.

The unfolding picture of an association unable to cope with the exigencies of a changing football world is one of the unfortunate legacies of the gruff autocracy imposed on Irish soccer during the Charlton era.

Without any significant change in personnel, Irish soccer went from being a quiet backwater notable only for the quality of its infighting to being ranked for a period among the top 10 soccer nations in the world. The country had the players but not the administration to justify that ranking.

In the interests of the senior team, Charlton ran roughshod over a meek domestic association. Under age representative teams suffered years of neglect and the domestic leagues were left to stagnate. FAI input into its own affairs was limited.

As the end of the Charlton era dawned, the FAI officer board moved to place itself in a position whereby it would never again experience the powerlessness it endured during his reign. This jockeying for position created intolerable stress for the full time employees of the association.

The fall out from that particular exercise has been immense. The processes by which Jack Charlton's services was initially disposed of and Mick McCarthy's services later acquired have been largely discredited and ridiculed.

AS the FAI braces itself for another few days of turmoil and strife, it is increasingly felt within the game that responsibility for rehabilitating Irish soccer may eventually fall to Mr Finbarr Flood, chairman of Shelbourne FC.

Mr Flood, a former managing director of Guinness Ireland and currently vice chairman of the Labour Court, has moved quickly and decisively to distance himself from the officer board of the FAI, resigning from all FAI committees on Thursday.

Mr Flood had reacted sharply when FAI president Mr Louis Kilcoyne further discredited the selection process by which Mick McCarthy became manager by announcing McCarthy had not been his first choice.

As pressure for sweeping reform mounts, it is felt that Finbarr Flood has perhaps played his hand most effectively.