Dooney critical of FAI's report

National League commissioner Roy Dooney said last night that he was "unhappy" with the FAI Legal Affairs committee's report into the Paul Marney affair in which his account of how the controversy was handled is called into question.

In the report, which was written by club officials Michael Cody (Cobh Ramblers), Brendan Dillon (UCD) and Paddy Goodwin (Drogheda Utd), it is pointed out that the evidence presented by Dooney and league administrator Jenni Stanley is contradictory on the question of whether Stanley informed Dooney that St Patrick's Athletic secretary Phil Mooney had apparently admitted to league officials that he had forgotten to post Marney's registration form.

Dooney, who responded to the findings at an FAI Board of Management meeting yesterday, said afterwards: "I have serious issues with the report which I have brought to Brendan Menton today."

He denied reports, however, that he was about to be offered a severance package by the league and said that when he had questioned Menton about the rumour the FAI's general secretary had insisted that there was no truth in it.

The report, meanwhile, is critical of the way the Marney affair was handled, claiming that the arbitrator in the case, Liam Reidy SC, may have been given misleading information before he considered the case.

It will now be considered by the league when representatives of St Patrick's Athletic, who declined to co-operate with the committee that compiled it, will get a chance to comment on its contents.

Negotiations on the club's other registration case involving Ugandan international Charles Mbabazi are continuing.