The frustration expressed by Sligo Rovers manager Tommy Cassidy after Sunday's defeat by Shamrock Rovers and his assertion that the club is in fundamental need of reorganisation is another reminder of the knife edge on which many of the National League's clubs continue to operate.

Despite this representatives of clubs still seem unable to agree on a common approach to moving the game forward.

The problems at Sligo have been coming for a long time. After a terrible display at Morton Stadium Cassidy said he felt that the club had been on a downward slope for many years.

What is undeniable is that Sligo, with big financial problems, limped through the latter stages of last season and it has more or less been one long struggle since the summer with only the continued goodwill of the local population and business community helping them to get by.

Crowds at the Showgrounds have been poor and despite the huge potential of the club and the huge interest in the game in the town and surrounding areas, it's hard to see them getting any better in the immediate future.

According to the National League Statistical Service (NLSS) website, the biggest attendance this season was 1,115, the smallest just 700 while the average is just under 950 per game.

It is argued by the league authorities that being involved in a fight against relegation should boost those numbers. If that were the case, the current Premier Division table in which seven clubs are slugging it out for the title/European spots and the other five still have the drop to worry about would suggest that crowds might well be up on last season. However, the reverse appears to be the case.

If nothing else is agreed over the coming weeks - the size of the top division, the timing of the season or even the proposals intended to boost the development of young players - the fact that up to 25 per cent of clubs can be relegated each season must be ended. Even the straight-forward abandonment of the play-off between the third bottom team and the third-placed side in the First Division would be a move in the right direction.

That might not, of course, suit a club like Dundalk in their current position - what looks like an increasingly clearcut three-way fight for two automatic promotion places from Division One.

Last night the club was scheduled to transform itself into a co-operative and while any new representative and management structures won't be put in place until the close season, a new interim committee is in effective day-to-day control at Oriel Park.

They will have their work cut out for them, as one of their number, Des Denning, readily concedes. However, he insists that the change in structure, the influx of new people with new ideas and the attempt to democratise the club will all help it to turn the corner.

By the summer the expectation is that Dundalk, currently averaging just over 700 at games according to the NLSS, will owe around £380,000. Denning sees the budget required for next year as being in the region of £350,000 - for which, the hope is, the club could be run and a team capable of finishing mid-table in the Premier Division could be fielded. If they fail to gain promotion this season this figure, he says, will have to be scaled back.

Several of the individuals at the centre of last night's takeover have been directors before. As a result, although there are those outside the co-operative who question their ability to meet the projections they have set, it's hard for anybody to argue that they don't know what they're getting themselves into.

Indeed one of the more interesting comments made by Denning yesterday is that the club "has to be run as a business first with the football coming second".

It's not the sort of hard-nosed stuff that one expects from a supporter-oriented group although, Denning points out, "there are a lot of people who have been prepared to put money into this that aren't particularly interested in football at all, they simply think that the club is important to the town and ought to be supported".

If they are successful the progress at the club will be closely watched by others around the league with the co-operative model, previously adopted by Finn Harps, possibly providing opportunities for others to explore.