Resources now available to make vital changes a reality

After March's sleepy lay off, April should be quite a month for followers of the National League.

Aside from the rush of games due over the coming weeks as clubs attempt to get their season completed and their overdrafts at least slightly straightened out, we should get to size up the organisation's new full-time executive while the precise nature of the proposed changes to the timing of the season should become clearer.

The Eircom Park saga, of course, continues to linger on but the most important part of it now from the clubs point of view, to just what extent they might benefit, will start to be considered in some detail over the coming four weeks or so.

Before worrying about how big a slice of the FAI's new cake they are going to claim, however, the clubs need to make some long-term decisions about some of the issues that have been hanging over them for several seasons now.

For most of the past decade the size of the league, the contribution made by some of the clubs and the way the league is marketed have all been questions that have become topics for heated debate.

In the past the lack of resources available to implement strategies adopted tended to make many of the debates rather pointless. The association's newly-struck deal with the Government should mean that that is about to change.

If the senior game is to make the most of that deal then the league as a whole has to be sure that its members will have the resources to maximise its potential. Clubs that are unable to provide their share of the capital required for development plans will not only fall behind but also damage the league as a whole.

Generally the suspicion is that it is the smaller clubs that will find the struggle to come up with funds toughest but there have been encouraging noises from the likes of Home Farm Fingal (soon to be Dublin City) and St Francis while there have even been some hopeful rumours from Limerick.

With just about everybody involved in the league considering the first division to be a wilderness, though, it will be interesting to see what level of investment is considered viable by clubs who can reasonably expect to be there for much of the forseeable future.

As it is, there is due to be a "downsizing" of the two divisions ahead of the season after next which may, given the new circumstances, have the undesired effect of limiting outside investment at a time when those funds would be most valuable.

Clubs who might be in a position to attract backing but will find it more difficult because of the lack of public support for, or media exposure of, the first division will doubtless now feel that the often mentioned alternative of enlarging the top flight makes more long-term sense for the league as a whole just now.

But then those like Bray Wanderers' Pat Devlin, who previously argued for membership of a more professional league to be based more strictly on the ability to meet agreed criteria - particularly in terms of facilities and capital - must feel that their case has been strengthened by the prospect of such substantial funding from the FAI and Government over the coming years.

Clubs that can generate agreed minimum levels of capital during the coming five years or so should be rewarded as should those who manage to devote set percentages of their income to long-term development plans.

The new UEFA regulations on club finances should be applied to all senior outfits here and the league should be given stronger powers to deal with those who show themselves incapable of effectively handling their finances.

At that stage there might even be a willingness to provide a marketing budget as well as a marketing manager although that might still be a little radical for an organisation that has occasionally placed its faith in the latter while apparently considering the former a reckless extravagance.