The controversy over Eircom Park was further embittered today as the FAI threatened legal action against two newspapers. At the same time, a severe rift appears to have developed within the Association itself.
The FAI say they will sue The Irish Independentand The Daily Starunless they print "a full retraction" of their reports, which the FAI describe as "unfounded allegations", that the Association intends to enter into secret negotiations with the Government with a view to discussing alternatives to current plans for Eircom Park.
The reports were in direct contradiction to last night's declarations by the FAI's Management Board that it would maintain its policy of non-involvement with the Government and instead steam ahead with the construction of Eircom Park despite revealing the cost of this - now expected to be almost double what was originally estimated (£125 million instead of £65 million).
However, the FAI's Honorary Treasurer, Mr Brendan Menton, insists that he does indeed intend to meet the Government.
A row, though, seems to have broken out as to whether Mr. Menton would be entitled to enter such a meeting as an FAI representative. The FAI's President, Mr. Pat Quigley, today issued a statement affirming Mr. Menton had no official mandate to approach the Government on this matter and could therefore do so only "as a private citizen and not as an official of the FAI".
Mr. Quigley, when talking to ireland.com, later added "I doubt the Taoiseach would agree to meet him in any official setting ... I would be surprised if he put himself in that situation".
Yet Mr. Menton remains adamant he will represent the FAI at any such meeting, and claims "nobody was unhappy about this" when he announced this intention at last night's meeting.
Though Mr. Menton has been strident in his criticisms of the Eircom Park project, particularly its revenue-generating proposals, he insists that, at this stage, he is still just concerned with "looking at all the options", not abandoning the project completely.
He told ireland.com: "Last night's announcement that we would, after all, be seeking investors was a fundamental change of policy .. previously we had insisted we could do it all ourselves ... it seems possible to me that any revenue generated by the project will accrue to the investor, not necessarily to the Association".
Though he describes his relationship with his FAI colleagues as "professional", he has in the past complained that he has not received all the financial information relevant to the development. With this in mind, he was pleased that the figure of £125 million was at last closer to his own estimates.
Mr. Quigley, when asked today by ireland.com, explained the difference between this figure and the original one as follows: "Firstly, it's because the original figure of £65 million quoted by the contractors was in sterling and the value of sterling has fluctuated by 25% since then. Secondly, there's inflation. Thirdly, it should be noted that our new figure of £125 million includes a £10 million overrun".
While Mr. Menton claims to have the support of most FAI members in his examination of all alternatives, Mr. Quigley slammed "spurious sideshows ... conducted on the sidelines by opponents of the project - both internally and externally" and re-iterated the FAI's desire to "go it alone".
"We want freedom" he said, "At the moment, we are dependent on the goodwill of the IRFU ... if we had our own home, we would be able to arrange attractive friendlies throughout the year, and even invite other European teams to stage high-profile matches here ... but we haven't been able to do that to-date because the IRFU need Lansdowne Road for their own matches".