Rule-book flaws begin to register

It may not be the biggest of games but there can hardly be a club official connected with the Eircom League who isn't grateful for the distraction of tomorrow evening's international game against Denmark.

After one of the most lamentable weeks in the history of the domestic game even yesterday's lack of statements, accusations or, in the case of Roddy Collins, confessions, came as a relief. With the deadline for the expected St Patrick's Athletic appeal fast approaching, though, we can be certain the lull won't last for long.

Already there is some sense that whatever happens in relation to player registrations there simply has to be a major reappraisal of how the league is run if the damage done over the past week, and that which could still be done, is to be repaired.

If the current mess, and the possibility that those close to St Patrick's are right when they claim the registration situation is so bad that the league's only way out will be a general amnesty, hadn't set the alarm bells ringing then there are other reasons to be concerned about the way things are being run at the moment.

Overall the league is responsible for five competitions: the two divisions of the senior league, the League Cup and the under-21 League and Cup. Of these competitions, two are threatened with legal wrangles over player registrations that may drag on into the summer before the final placings of clubs can be decided. The League Cup is running so late it may bring the season to a close rather than the FAI Cup and the under-21 competitions are likely to be abandoned because they have fallen behind schedule so badly that the clubs will not be prepared to keep paying their players into the close season.

In the circumstances it's not surprising there have been calls for heads to roll in Merrion Square. Roy Dooney has been the most obvious candidate but as the real scale of the league's problems emerge it is hard to imagine just what the new league commissioner was supposed to do with what he had encountered.

Those who have been in charge far longer are the ones who have to explain precisely how things were allowed to get to this stage. There is a growing feeling that Michael Hyland's position as chairman of the National League may end up more untenable than that of a man who only arrived late on the scene.

Shelbourne have been criticised for revisiting the whole registration row but the reality is that Ollie Byrne and the rest of the club's officials have at least been consistent over the years in attempting to take the rule-book seriously. Their views have rarely been shared by those running the show in Merrion Square, where the very flaws that are the cause of so many of the league's woes were exploited by officials who were not keen to see clarity in the regulations.

Those at St Patrick's, like just about everybody else, are guilty of failing to adequately address those issues at league meetings.

One of the saddest incidents of this entire debacle was Pat Dolan, an apparently able man who has always spoken with passion about how the professional game here should be moved forward, going on national radio last week and defending his club on the basis that the rule-book is a joke. He may be right but Dolan has been around long enough to have done something about it by now. He, like club officials around the country, must take his share of the blame.

Over the weekend FAI general secretary Brendan Menton floated the idea that the decision-making and administrative powers of the league should be transferred from club representatives to a number of full-time professional administrators. If ever there was a time to make such fundamental changes to the way in which the organisation is run then it must be now.

Weary, not only of the current dispute, but of the apparently endless ability of certain clubs to argue among themselves, many administrators would probably welcome such a move. Menton believes there may well be enough support for the required rule changes to be voted on at this year's a.g.m. which is due to take place at the end of next month.

Time is short, though, and Dooney is already working on a range of other changes aimed at making the rule-book more workable. Regardless of what happens over the coming days and weeks with St Patrick's, an unprecedented unity of purpose is required from everybody involved in the league. The pity is nothing we have witnessed so far suggests it can be achieved.