Dolan may face points deduction

St Patrick's Athletic will learn this morning whether the club is to be docked nine points by the league as a result of fielding young midfielder Paul Marney in the first three games of the season while he was still unregistered.

Under the rules of the league clubs that field an unregistered player are supposed to be docked three points but it is far from clear that that is what will happen when representatives of the Inchicore club travel to Merrion Square in order to have their case heard.

With both sides apparently believing the incident is the result of a simple error, it seems possible Roy Dooney, Michael Hyland and the recently-elected treasurer of the league, Declan O'Luanaigh will look at ways in which less severe penalties might be imposed.

How much freedom they have to go easy on St Patrick's looks open to question, however, as rule 16 clearly states that clubs in these circumstances will (rather than may) have the points deducted.

In the case of Pat Dolan's side that would mean the club being reduced to minus one point in the league table, although there is no question of any of the clubs they have played to date being awarded the games.

The problem over Marney apparently came to light more or less by accident last week and in a statement issued by Dooney yesterday, it is made clear he actually warned club officials that the player should be omitted from the team for last Thursday night's game against UCD.

Subsequently, the club could not produce the documentation required to prove that Marney's registration had been sent to the league by registered post. This in itself is a breach of the rule and makes the question of whether it was posted in some other way more or less irrelevant to the case.

There is a fear within Merrion Square, however, that any move to dock points from the club may result in legal action although it seems as likely that failure to do so would result in a challenge at the end of the season when the nine points in question may well be enough to decide the title, keep another club out of Europe or even condemn a club to relegation.

Shelbourne chairman Gary Brown made it clear yesterday he felt that the points should, as prescribed by the rule book, be deducted. "The league has had an ongoing problem with precisely this sort of thing, the fact people are too weak to apply the rules.

"Well this is another opportunity to start applying them and I think everybody knows that Pat Dolan would be dancing a highland fling about this being done by the book if any other club was involved."

Brown, meanwhile, will depart as Shelbourne chairman today with the club scheduled to confirm at lunchtime he is being replaced by Finbarr Flood, who is returning to the post after a two-year absence.

Details are also expected this afternoon of the talks that have been in progress with members of the Donnelly family which is severing its ties with the Tolka Park outfit. The family, major importers and distributors of fruit and vegetables, owns the club's home ground although talks about a deal enabling it to be transferred are believed to be at an advanced stage.