O'Byrne's dream to receive fatal blow

The FAI's two-year internal battle over whether to build a new home at the Citywest campus near Tallaght looks certain to be concluded at the Green Isle Hotel this afternoon, when delegates from around the country are expected to choose a tenancy at Stadium Ireland in Abbotstown rather than the much debated Eircom Park.

For much of yesterday it seemed unclear whether a vote would be taken at today's meeting but, after meetings of the National League, as well as the Leinster and Munster Football Associations, there was a growing consensus last night that the association will finally drop its plans to build its own stadium.

While the association's chief executive Bernard O'Byrne was believed to be mounting a last-minute telephone campaign to prevent the project he has championed for more than two years being jettisoned, opponents of the Eircom Park scheme insisted that they have more than enough votes to end what has been a divisive and often bitter dispute within the organisation.

While the National League's representatives, a majority of whom have consistently expressed their opposition to the Eircom Park plan, met in Dublin last night to consider their approach to this afternoon's crucial meetings - they voted 22-0 in favour of the Abbotstown plan - the fate of the £130 million scheme may have been sealed elsewhere as representatives of the Munster and Leinster associations met to consider the issue.

With the two largest voting blocks outside of the senior game, the associations had up to now provided the backbone of O'Byrne's support for the scheme. Both, however, are believed to have switched sides last night with Leinster's leaders voting 90 in favour of a change in policy, giving the pro-Stadium Ireland contingent a clear majority and opening up the previously unthinkable possibility that two years of acrimony could even be ended without the need for a vote.

Two meetings, one of the FAI's board of management (in effect, its directors) and one of its national council (a larger, policy-making body), will now decide the future path of the association this afternoon. But an earlier meeting of the organisation's officers will give a strong indication of how smoothly the rest of the day will go.

If the officers - of whom Pat Quigley and Milo Corcoran have consistently supported Eircom Park - agree unanimously to recommend acceptance of the Government's offer of substantial grant aid in return for becoming a tenant at Stadium Ireland, then a clear decision on abandoning the association's project should quickly follow.

In the face of crumbling support for Eircom Park, Corcoran looks certain to switch his vote while Quigley may decide in favour of playing a unifying role by throwing his weight behind the Government deal too.

There remains a small chance that some O'Byrne supporters might press for either a further period of deliberation, or even the appointment of an independent assessor, an idea floated by the anti-Eircom Park side before negotiations with the Government started.

That would cause a little difficulty for those in favour of deciding the issue now in that they have repeatedly argued over the past couple of years, in the face of equally strong claims that Eircom Park's benefits were self-evident, that there could be no harm in subjecting that project to additional scrutiny.

Now they will find themselves arguing in favour of voting for a Government proposal that many delegates did not see until last night but the association's treasurer, Brendan Menton, insisted yesterday that the prospect of having to start spending again in order to prepare the association's planning appeal at An Bord Pleannala makes it essential that a decision be taken today. "To delay it," he remarked "would be nonsensical."

Yesterday, however, none of the delegates contacted by The Irish Times doubted that Eircom Park was now doomed, something that even Diarmuid Crowley of IMG, the FAI's advisors on the project, appeared to accept yesterday. He expressed his company's belief that while "Eircom Park represents the best medium to longterm option for the association, the National Stadium does represent the best short-term one". The latter, he conceded, is likely to be chosen.

O'Byrne, meanwhile, could not be contacted yesterday but in spite of his apparently continuing opposition the scale of the majority voting for the Stadium Ireland option is likely to oblige him to put a brave face on matters. Indeed if the officers do agree to recommend an alternative strategy he will not be in a position to do anything but accept that decision.

Still there was some sympathy for his position last night with one league delegate observing: "I would feel a little sorry for Bernard if he didn't get even some credit for the fact that, however unwittingly, he has helped to obtain a fantastic deal for the FAI in return for moving to Stadium Ireland while what have the IRFU been given? Absolutely nothing."