Clubs ready to flex their muscles

INCREASINGLY feeling disenchanted and, more to the point, disenfranchised, the national League clubs are sensing a chance to flex their muscles. Come March 8th and the mother of all senior (council meetings, some of the 16 not represented on the executive are liable to land a few mortal blows on the beleaguered FAI officers.

In the eyes of one club chairman, who chose to remain anonymous, the crisis enveloping the FAI officer board is a manifestation of their modus operandi, whereby they make decisions first and consult afterwards.

One club chairman informed me that the first he knew of the FAI's input into the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation in Dublin Castle was when he saw the president on television and read about the FAI proposal on a merger between the north and south. If the clubs down here were taken aback, imagine what the Irish League clubs thought?

"We attend one senior council meeting every two months and all the decisions made at various committees and executive council in the interim are only presented to us the day beforehand. There is a lack of consultation from the top table."

It is his club's intention to vote against at least two and perhaps all five of the officer board. A total clear out would, in his opinion, represent the best thing that could happen to Irish football".

However, with the exceptions of Shelbourne and Bohemians, the rest are keeping their counsel until, it seems, the full council meeting. Partly, it's because their representatives have still to be mandated but, even so, there's been a marked silence from National League clubs to date.

When it comes to the crunch on March 8th though, the clubs will have the public as well as their own supporters to answer to. Everybody will be watching them and with 22 votes out of 51 they have a powerful say in the running of football in this country which up to this they haven't always been exercising.

Consequently, it seems highly unlikely that the quintet of officers will surive en bloc. In ways, it's hard not to tee more than a twinge of sympathy for them, hut if it comes to it, they brought all of this on themselves.

The transparency and accountability which vice president Des Casey spoke of last Wednesday night has been patently absent, not just beforehand but since then. Referring to the minutes of a meeting of the finance committee and quoting the former accountant Michael Morris without recourse to any exact figures, simply wasn't satisfactory. Had the officers ordered an external investigation at that stage and had Delaney come clean then much of the subsequent damage could have been averted.

Of course, the records will also show that Casey said there was no evidence to the effect that one of the officers had met any shortfall in money accrued from tickets for US 94. Louis Kilcoyne said there was never any shortfall.

Meantime, three of the officers denied Finbarr Flood's claim that there had been an agreed statement the day after Kilcoyne's celebrated McCarthy wasn't his first choice gaffe which the president had withdrawn. Yet several independent members of the executive who attended the meeting off February 9th have informed me that the president did admit to withdrawing the statement reaffirming their support for McCarthy.

A majority of the 22 clubs, and the 51 on senior council, will surely take a dim view of this unless there is sudden and stark evidence of transparency and accountability. Were the quintet to surive en bloc, an unlikely scenario now, then the first casualty will be a merger. A clean slate would surely see it being rubber stamped this May.

Intriguingly, a Sunday newspaper reported that the merger will survive regardless because of a clause in Harp's three year sponsorship of the National League stipulating that it is dependent upon the merger remaining intact.

A spokesperson for Harp said yesterday that "one is not dependent upon the other. As far as Harp are concerned we're sponsoring the National League next season no matter what happens in the interim.

In any event, far from proving a carrot with which to entice the National League into remaining with the FAI, such a clause (without their knowledge or approval) would merely antagonise them further.