PFAI wants Cork players on transfer list

LEAGUE OF IRELAND PREMIER DIVISION:PFAI GENERAL secretary Stephen McGuinness called last night for all of Cork City's players to be transfer listed regardless of whether club chairman Tom Coughlan manages to prevent the club going into liquidation by striking a deal with the Revenue Commissioners at or before this Friday's return to the High Court, writes EMMET MALONE, Soccer correspondent

Speaking after Ms Justice Mary Laffoy had agreed to stay her order to wind up the holding company that owns the club until the end of the week so Coughlan could consider an appeal, McGuinness said that even if the €110,000 required for any deal with the tax authorities is raised the club’s future remains so uncertain players should be allowed to take up offers of alternative employment prior to Friday’s transfer deadline.

McGuinness is due to meet with Coughlan this morning immediately after a meeting between the club’s chairman and owner with the FAI.

With an appeal to the Supreme Court pretty much out of the question, both the players union and the association will be hoping the Corkman can provide reassurance about coming up with the money required but yesterday outside court Coughlan, when asked how much he would have to come up with to avoid the appointment of a liquidator said, he would; “Only be guessing really, to be honest.

“They’re talking about 50 per cent (of the roughly €439,000 owed) so let’s see if we can do that and then see what happens.”

Coughlan, who met with the club’s players on Saturday when he offered reassurance regarding the payment of wages due tomorrow and the club’s future brought €110,000 in bank drafts to court yesterday hoping they would be accepted as a down payment, with the balance to be paid over 12 months in equal instalments.

The Revenue Commissioners, though, have refused to budge on a previous offer that half of the debt be paid up front, with the balance to follow in four equal instalments. This leaves Coughlan to find an additional €110,000 by Friday and then around €60,000 per month until the end of the season at a club already losing significant amounts of money.

The court was told Coughlan has put around €700,000 of his own money into City since taking over towards the end of last year and there is a feeling in some quarters he was not nearly as ruthless with the club’s cost base at that point as he needed to be.

Whatever the reason for the club’s latest round of financial troubles, its handling of its tax affairs since emerging from examinership made a clash with the authorities inevitable although there is a feeling in some quarters that the uncompromising stance being adopted in relation to the club has been prompted at least as much by the sins of others.

“I am surprised by the attitude of the Revenue,” says McGuinness, something of a veteran himself when it comes to chasing clubs for money, “but I think it’s based on 20 years of being mistreated by clubs up and down the country. Cork City seem to be on the receiving end of their wrath for that.”

The FAI last night issued a statement “noting” yesterday’s events in the High Court but given the stampede in the direction of Abbotstown it would cause, there is unlikely to be any assistance on offer to Coughlan this morning despite the blow to the league’s credibility were it to lose another club mid-season (Dublin City folded three years ago) and to have no senior club playing out of Cork.

For the moment, the official line is it’s business as usual, with Cork included in this afternoon’s draw for the Setanta Cup and Friday’s game at Turner’s Cross against Bray Wanderers still scheduled to go ahead.

In the event that the worst does come to pass, however, Bray may well replace Cork in the Setanta Cup on the basis of their league position at the end of last season while all of City’s results from the current league campaign would be expunged.

The club would then occupy the sole automatic relegation position in the Premier Division with no points with the other clubs left fighting to avoid the play-offs.

Cork lie third in the Premier Division table, eight points behind Bohemians and three behind Shamrock Rovers. As Dublin City’s demise in 2006 did, the club’s removal from the reckoning would have an effect on those around them with the gap between the two top clubs, for instance, being cut from five points to four.