FAI in crisisOn the eve of today's meetings, at Dublin's Citywest Hotel, of the Football Association of Ireland's board of management, in the morning, and council, in the afternoon, Fran Rooney, the association's embattled chief executive, was busy making a case for the retention of his post on RTÉ's Liveline programme, which was given over to the latest in a long, long line of internal FAI squabbles.

By evening Rooney had the public support of the Eircom League manager's association - "We've had a couple of meetings with him and found him to be very supportive of the needs of the Eircom League . . . whatever difficulties he is currently encountering in Merrion Square we wish him the best in this difficult situation." - but their press release was swiftly followed by a "negative" one from the Eircom League board of control.

"At its meeting this evening the Eircom League board of control has taken the decision to write to FAI president Milo Corcoran expressing its dissatisfaction with the performance of the chief executive officer of the FAI in relation to league affairs," it read. "The board is also seeking a meeting with the FAI president at the earliest possible opportunity to discuss its concerns."

The build-up, then, to today's crunch meetings might be regarded as a score draw for Rooney, although the bulk of the callers to Liveline were firmly on his side - to the point where "Seán from Dublin" complained that the show resembled a Rooney "love-in".

Rooney's most enthusiastic supporter proved to be former international Paul McGrath, who suggested the chief executive was a victim of a "witch hunt".

"He's doing the job perfectly," he said, "he's implementing the Genesis report, maybe slowly, but doing it any way. Fran's credentials, to me, are impeccable. He's someone who wants to do the job and do it properly, and I just don't understand why the FAI are not allowing this man, a genuine guy, do the actual job. He is a decent human being who's trying to do a job. I don't understand it myself, I really don't."

Rooney began by attempting to answer some of the recent allegations made against him, starting with the charge that he owes the association a "substantial" sum for match tickets.

"There's a spin going around about tickets," he said. "Depending on which newspaper you read I owe anything from €10,000 to €50,000. That's simply not true. I don't owe a cent. Fran Rooney doesn't owe a cent to the FAI for tickets."

Rooney was also asked about the allegation that he failed to pay a bill for a meal he hosted at Patrick Guilbaud's restaurant in Dublin for the members of the old FAI board, a bill the restaurant said last week had yet to be paid.

"I dropped a cheque in to Patrick for that and that's the end of the story," he said. "It's nothing to do with the FAI, it's a personal matter between myself and Patrick."

Asked about Corcoran's intimation he could no longer work with him and that he, Rooney, was on a "different planet", Rooney responded: "My feet are very firmly on the ground. I know what has to be done and I know there's support from the grassroots for me to do it, that's the key issue. I just want to sit down with the board and the council (today) to address the issues and get back to football.

"I came through the grassroots of football. I played the game, I washed the gear, I lined the pitches. I qualified as a coach, I managed teams - schoolboys' teams, women's teams, men's teams. Here was I being given an opportunity to change football and to help bring about the change," he said of the day he was offered the chief executive's job with FAI.

"I've been committed to everything I've done in life, whether it was running an under-10 team, my own training, whether it was Baltimore Technologies, now it's the FAI - I put my heart and soul in to whatever I do. The messages of support I've got this week from the grassroots have been phenomenal, people ringing me right through the day and night, right behind me, they want me to continue with the job that I've started."

"I want to say to Fran Rooney: stay in there because I think you're bloody brilliant," said Pat, another caller to Liveline.

He, though, was preceded by a man who suggested "the supporters would run Irish football better than the whole lot of yiz together. The FAI are a joke, they just can't work together".