FAI rebuffs clubs' cash

In common with every other European federation, the FAI has reacted with indignation to a proposal from leading clubs that they be compensated for providing players to national squads.

In a significant escalation of the unease between clubs and national federations and, by extension FIFA and UEFA, new demands have emerged which could shake the financial structures of the game throughout Europe.

A seminar of the presidents and general secretaries of federations affiliated to UEFA in Amsterdam last Thursday discussed a letter from the G14 group of clubs, representative of football's aristocracy in Italy, Germany, Spain, England and Holland.

It dealt with what they termed "the unacceptable demands" being placed on them in having to release players for international games which they say are fragmenting their season to the point where it is becoming unviable.

Now they want national federations to reimburse them with an astonishing 50 per cent of the receipts from international games on the premise that the money is needed to fund their youth development programmes.

Earlier they suggested that federations pay the wages of players for the week in which they are involved in international games, a proposal which is some respects is even more reprehensible to the governing bodies.

"If by chance this demand was conceded, it would drive us to the wall in 12 months - and the same goes for anything up to 45 of the associations affiliated to UEFA," said FAI president Pat Quigley.

"Like these federations, the FAI is totally dependant on the income from senior international games to fund its activities, including the development of the stars of the future.

"People tend to forget that last season we played almost 90 games at all levels, ranging from schoolboys to senior internationals. Only a handful of these, the senior international fixtures, were profitable and to have to hand over half of this income would be absolutely ruinous.

"Both Sepp Blatter, FIFA's president, and Lennart Johannsen, president of UEFA, are opposed to any change in the existing format and have pledged that they will deal directly with the problem."

With an attendance ceiling of less than 35,000 in operation for big football games at Lansdowne Road since FIFA, in its wisdom, banned standing spectators for competitive international fixtures, the direct profits from these game are now down to approximately £250,000.

In the context of the earlier demand that national federations be responsible for meeting the wages, normally paid by clubs, in the week of an international game, the FAI was aghast at the prospect of having to foot a bill for almost £300,000, for a full 22-man squad.

Ranging from Roy Keane on a reputed £52,000 a week to the lowest paid members of the squad at £12,000, the cumulative earnings of players were such as to rule out any prospect of the FAI making a profit if the clubs' claim was conceded in full.

The posturing is seen as the latest and potentially most serious development in the conflict between clubs and federations for control of the game. For much of the last 15 years the strain has been showing as the bigger clubs across Europe seek to loosen the shackles of both FIFA and UEFA.

In particular, they have railed against the imposition of having to release players a full five days before a competitive international game, a directive which they claim is having serious repercussions in the manner in which the calendar is structured.

Now, in another move which the federations term as provocative, they want internationals to be played at just two specified times in the year, in October and May/June