What is it about the saga of Rule 42 - the provision that is used to prevent soccer and rugby being played on GAA grounds - that lends its debate to such violent shocks and changes of direction? It has led to intrigue at two GAA congresses, at one of which an unprecedented wad of money was flung on the table; featured the improbable - and it would have to be said reluctant - involvement of the GAA in a bid to land a major soccer tournament, and now has been electrified by the dramatic and unexpected news.

Although the wreckage is theoretically a matter of no concern to the GAA, the association will find itself centre-stage in a whole new controversy to do with where soccer and rugby internationals are held - to say nothing of the furore that will accompany the going down in flames of the stricken bid to stage the European soccer championship in 2008. This may be unfortunate, but the GAA have played a part in their difficulties by colluding with the Taoiseach to keep his pet project alive.

This reached its nadir with the heavily- qualified agreement last February to allow Croke Park to go forward as a prospective venue for Euro '08. It has become obvious that the GAA is extremely reluctant to perpetuate this farce and only got involved as a political favour to a Government and Taoiseach who had been so generous to it. There have been rumblings among the membership about an inappropriate closeness between the GAA and Fianna Fáil. Yesterday proves that such reservations were well warranted.

But back to the beginning. We have to take it that the Stadium Ireland project is only observing a decent interlude before being filed away with the plans to drain the Shannon. Maybe private sector funding can be unveiled, but no one discussing this project over the past couple of years has ever suggested it had such commercial viability.

The Government's offer of the property at Abbotstown would seem an inadequate incentive in the face of the difficulty of making the project pay, given that sports organisations playing ball with the initial plan were offered all sorts of money-making facilities for themselves. The greatest appeal would appear to be to descendants of the emperor's tailors who could snip imaginary scissors on the M50 until ruefully announcing that the site would be suitable only for more lucrative development.

The implications for the three big sports organisations are immense. Soccer and rugby are now left not just without an up-to-date home but with no prospect of one in the near or medium-term future, whereas the GAA has a major policy decision to make.

The FAI were persuaded to drop Eircom Park, and although that took little persuasion and was accompanied with a lavish pay-off, the soccer authorities are back in the doss house after being shown a site for their potentially lavish new accommodation.

The IRFU played the game loyally, supporting the Abbotstown project every step of the way, not panicking when the FAI and the GAA were given skips full of money for their support and discreetly shelving their own 1996 blueprint for a 60,000-capacity overhaul of Lansdowne Road. A modest €3,000,000 was handed over last year, but no bonanza. The rugby organisation has had to endure being taken for granted in relation to the Euro 2008 bid and watching - on a day for particularly fixed smiles - the Taoiseach down in their dressing-rooms working the players after the defeat of England 12 months ago while resolutely leaving his cheque book in the office.

For all their patient, political time- serving they never got their big pay-day as reward. Originally they had looked the big winners with their own stadium in Lansdowne Road to be going on with and an 80,000 stadium being built for their free use. Now that vision has turned into a mirage.

And the GAA? Strangely, considering the hugely successful launch of the new Croke Park and the €127,000,000 of public money that has been allocated to the project, even the GAA are less than happy. President Seán McCague's increasingly irritated comments on the matter of Euro '08 have illuminated a growing concern of the GAA. The official reaction to yesterday's developments restated McCague's anger that the FAI/SFA bid for the European Championship has been something of an illusion.

Facts bear this out. The devolved government in Scotland made it clear that it was no longer going to underwrite a solo bid by the SFA. This is where the FAI came in and, with the election on the horizon, the Taoiseach was happy to give State backing to such a good-vibes project - particularly as it could copper-fasten the future of Stadium Ireland. His coalition partners, the PDs, have never been that accommodating and squeezed out of Ahern an embargo on further discussion of Stadium Ireland prior to last May's election.

Since then, with the deterioration in the public finances impossible to disguise any longer, the pressure on Stadium Ireland has increased. Yesterday's announcement was a surprise in that a compromise, preserving a bit more of Ahern's dignity, had been expected. But the project was doomed - as had become obvious by the frantic spin going on in the media in recent weeks.

The GAA know that on this issue, the association is Wile E Coyote. No matter what it does - and mostly it behaves exasperatingly on the matter of Rule 42 - it ends up holding the bomb as the fuse burns out. Now after two separate governments have basically washed their hands of a Euro 2008 bid that was launched by two soccer associations, one of which had no facilities at all, the GAA will be to blame when the whole thing collapses - as it surely now will.

This is patently unfair. Many people - and a lot of them GAA members - would be proud and pleased to have the new Croke Park symbolically central to Irish sport. But the lifting of Rule 42 is a sensitive issue. Ironically, the one leading politician who has always understood that is the Taoiseach. Now the man who once said in an webcast interview on setanta.com last year that the GAA would "never" allow soccer into Croke Park is to "request" the association to hand over the stadium for a major soccer tournament.

Now the association is being asked to dance to the political tune of the PDs, the one party whose brash attitude to opening up Croke Park is heartily detested by the GAA hierarchy. Estimate the chances of that happening and you might as well instruct UEFA not to bother even inspecting the headquarters venue.

Of course the GAA should be more broad-minded on the issue and make a decision based on its own concerns, recognising that self-interest and a degree of generosity go hand-in-hand. But it's unlikely to do so. Instead it will become angry and truculent and dig in its heels. And in the circumstances this won't be surprising.

Money may be dangled - even the balancing quarterly instalments of the €60,000,000 grant, which are believed to be already two months in arrears - as a carrot, but the GAA has been impervious to past offers of financial inducement aimed at securing progress on this issue.