Confidence vote pending as Flood joins exodus

FAR from assuaging their critics - within the FAO/National within the League - with their performance at the executive council meeting and subsequent press conference on Wednesday night, the FAI's five man officer board will now face votes of confidence at the next meeting of the 11 member full council on March 8th.

In another damaging blow to the FAI's hierarchy, the Shelbourne chairman Finbarr Flood yesterday tendered his resignation from the executive and full councils. He issued a brief statement to the association's president, Louis Kilcoyne, stating: "Dear President, Please accept my resignation as Shelbourne Football Club representative on all Football Association of Ireland committees, with immediate effect, signed Finbarr Flood."

Asked to clarify why he had taken this course of action, Flood said: "My statement speaks for itself." Des Casey, stand in chief executive, said that the association "regretted" Flood's decision and that "his expertise would be missed."

Flood had expressed his anger to The Irish Times last Friday when stating that a statement would be issued expressing full support for Mick McCarthy the day after Kilcoyne's celebrated admission that McCarthy was not his first choice as manager, and that this had been withdrawn by the association's president.

At Wednesday night's press conference, Kilcoyne said: "There was no statement. There was a suggestion that there might be a statement." He was supported in this by Michael Hyland and Joe Delaney. This direct contradiction of Flood's stated position was probably the final straw. It is also believed that Shelbourne will table motions of confidence in each of the five officers in time for the Council meeting on March 8th. If they don't then Bohemians yesterday confined that they will do so.

Their representative, Donal Crowther, was also displeased with the officers' interpretation of the preceding executive committee meeting, which Kilcoyne said was "very together tonight" and "fully supportive of the officers".

According to other executive members, the only recorded vote of thanks was extended to Des Casey, in standing in for Sean Connolly.

Crowther said: "The club's view is that we will be supporting a motion to that effect. At a later stage, we would probably decide who we will and who we won't vote for." However, Kilcoyne would currently appear the most vulnerable of the five officers. "I know one person we won't be, voting for. That's the president."

Added Crowther: "I don't agree with what the president said about the executive on Wednesday night, that there were no objections and that there was full support, or words to that effect. That is not correct. Bohs did not take that position. I think it's gone on long enough. Basically, to use a football phrase, they've brought the game into disrepute, with capital letters, and should face the music at full council.

"If you're led to believe what the grassroots and people in the street think, then they're all up in arms about it. People who are involved in football can't believe it." Asked if another club did not table such a motion, Crowther said: "Then I'm sure Bohemians will do it."

Another delegate who was not satisfied by their response to the many questions put to them, most notably the alleged claim that there was once a shortfall of £200,000 from the FAI's allocation of 1994 World Cup tickets, was Leinster FA representative Charlie Cahill.

Describing Flood as "a breath of fresh air" whose resignation was "disastrous" and born out of "frustration", Cahill added: "I thought he was asking the right questions but probably wasn't getting the answers required."

As to whether the executive was fully behind the officers, Cahill said: "If that's the case I wasn't at the same meeting. Let's say I wouldn't be terribly happy at the tone of the replies." He would favour the motions being tabled. "There's so much disruption going on at the moment that I think it's the only way to clear the air."

It also looks as if a majority of the 22 National League clubs, 16 of whom are not represented on the executive, would vote against one or more of the officers. A chairman of one of those 16 clubs said yesterday: "We would vote that they should get out, because of their track record and particularly they're failure to consult the clubs with their decisions."