Longford's case adds spice to the season

If anyone really suspected that the early running made by Bohemians in the Eircom League combined with the fact that the cup should be done and dusted by the end of this month meant we were going to have a dull second half to the season then last week's controversy involving Avery John will have set them straight.

The fact that we once again have a club threatening legal action over a points deduction while various other parties concede they've been hard done by makes a sense of a certain déjà vu unavoidable.

The question now is whether Longford can negotiate their way out of a mess, they insist is not of their own making, any more successfully than St Patrick's Athletic did a year ago.

They certainly claim to have a stronger case. On the one hand, they insist that it was previously made clear to league members that lists of registered players sent out by Merrion Square meant that there definitely no issues outstanding with regard to the players concerned and the fact that John appears on the list sent to them should, they maintain, clear them of any wrong-doing.

They also point to the fact that one of the four copies of each registration form submitted to a club goes to the FAI and that in this case the association had the 15 days that passed before John made his debut to inform the league that there was no international clearance for the player.

On the issue of the eight week rule they contend that John had no idea that Colchester had requested an international clearance for him and they therefore had no way of knowing that they needed to request one back.

Still, the rules explicity require clubs to cover their own backs and so, technically Longford may well still be out on a limb.

In the original Paul Marney affair the FAI's conflict resolution procedures almost saved Pat Dolan's club, when Liam Reidy SC decided to grant the club what amounted to little more than the benefit of the doubt, and return the nine points they were originally docked.

The fact that problems subsequently emerged in relation to Charles Mbabazi then landed the Inchicore club back in the mire and it is the subsequent perception that Reidy had been far too generous in his assessment of the situation that may have a profound impact on Longford's course of action.

The club's chairman, Jim Hanley, and Alan Matthews have both expressed considerable confidence that once their case is considered by people, who not bound to apply the rules to the letter of the law - as those attending last week's Board of Control meeting were - common sense will prevail.

In reality, that seems far from certain in the wake of last season's endless wrangling. Whatever happens at the appeals stage, though, what Longford surely have to avoid is arbitration. In the wake of Reidy's experience there will probably be few enough qualified people willing to take the task on and whoever does will surely be very be reticent about taking as broad a view as he did.

If that is the case then Longford, no matter how much sympathy you feel for them, could have problems that may require that a little leeway is shown.

Ironically, they might fare better by moving the process on directly from the forthcoming appeal to the courts where, when presented with last season's saga one High Court judge made it abundantly clear that, pretty much regardless of the outcome, any sort of properly run arbitration should be exempt from outside interference.

Even if the Longford are punished for what has happened, the league must still accept some responsibility for their plight. Aside from the lack of communication between two organisations based in different offices in the same building, that is a key element is this case, there is also the fact the mandatory nature of the penalty should have been changed in the wake of the Mbabazi affair.

Ultimately, then, it seems that Longford's fate may yet prove to be just another part of the fall-out from the league's attempt to get serious about the way it is run.

emalone@irish-times.ie