St Patrick's escape will all their points

St Patrick's Athletic yesterday had a fine of just £1,000 imposed upon them by a National League hearing convened to consider the fact that the club had fielded an ineligible player in each of their first three league games of the season.

Under rule 16(a) of the league the club might well have had three points deducted for each game in which the offence was committed, but league commissioner Roy Dooney said afterwards that he and the other officers who had considered the case had decided to apply "common sense" when considering the issue.

While Dooney, Michael Hyland and Declan O'Luanaigh all agreed that a breach of the rule in question had indeed occurred, they all felt that the failure to register Paul Marney had been "inadvertent" and that the club should therefore be treated leniently.

"We took into account that the player had been registered with the club last year, that he signed a new contract with them this summer and that there had not been any attempt to subvert the rules," said Dooney. "I can only hope that other clubs will see the decision we took in a 'there but for the grace of God go I' sort of spirit."

Although officials of Shelbourne, one of three clubs to drop points to St Patrick's in the games in question declined to go into any detail about how they might react to the decision after formally considering it amongst themselves, Ollie Byrne did observe rather ominously that "the league has rules and it must abide by those rules".

In fact, rule 16, as Dooney himself conceded yesterday, is quite specific insofar as it states that a club in this position will be docked the points and it is not, therefore, clear on what legal basis the decision to fine the club instead was made however well-intentioned the decision may have been.

Equally unclear is where Shelbourne, Galway United, Derry City or, for that matter, any of the clubs less directly affected might go with the matter.

It is possible that one or more may decide to lodge an appeal against the decision within the league's own structures, although it is less clear whether the appeals committee would agree to hear an appeal lodged by one club in relation to the outcome of a disciplinary hearing of another.

Other options include bringing a case to the international football federations which have the power to hear disputes in a wide range of areas and would be almost certain to agree to adjudicate in a case relating to the administration of a member association's rules.

Another would be to go to the courts, something that all sides involved will be anxious to avoid at this point, given the potential cost involved.

It is, however, far from out of the question that that is where the case may end up being decided for the record of disputes over rulings of this type being settled more amicably in recent years is depressingly poor.

For now, though, the various parties concerned have four days to decide whether to lodge an appeal.