LEAGUE OF IRELAND:WITH A little over a week still to go before the new League of Ireland campaign kicks off, the burgeoning rivalry between First Division promotion favourites Sporting Fingal and Shelbourne was hotting up nicely yesterday as both held pre-season launches on Dublin's northside.

First blood went to the new kids on the block, with Shelbourne obliged to shift their event back because Sporting had called theirs first and there was only a limited number of media to go around.

By the time the travelling press corps arrived at Shelbourne, though, manager Dermot Keely was in flying form with the close-season spending of his new club’s neighbours providing the ammunition for his assault.“I think there was some snipe in the paper that a player they wanted was offered more money by another club – that could only have been me,” he announced with a fair amount of mock outrage. “Cloud cuckoo land they should be in or never-never land.”

He went on to dismiss the idea that he might be happy that Liam Buckley’s string of high-profile signings had put pressure on Sporting by making them favourites to gain promotion.

“If you gave me that budget, a full-time professional set-up in the First Division and a week in Barcelona (Sporting are just back), then I’d take being favourites.

“It will be hard because they have players who have not only played in the Premier Division, but who have also played in Europe. But I’ve said before that the League of Ireland is different to any other league and the First Division is a bit more different.

“My lads all know what it’s like to graft, to go down to Kildare and Limerick, where you will deal with smaller pitches, and to roll their sleeves up, which is what they’ll have to do.”

Shelbourne chairman Joe Casey, who announced a six-figure, two-year shirt sponsorship deal with taxi firm Cab 2000, said that the club lost €76,000 last season, down from €2.1 million two years previously.

Expenditure over at Sporting, meanwhile, is nowhere close to matching the Shelbourne highs, but Buckley admits his club, which has signed a string of big-name players like Alan Kirby, Gary O’Neill and Eamon Zayed, is bucking the trend by spending more this year in an attempt to establish themselves, attract bigger crowds and win promotion.

“It (the squad) is strong, there’s no two ways about it,” he says. “It’s important we land running. I’m sure people are looking at the amount of Premier Division players we have, but it is what it is.

“I make no apologies for that. I’ve been given a budget to get the best possible group in and I like to think I’ve spent it well.”