One Professional League Please

Lousy communications, confusion and no financial controls have done the eircom League no good this year.

By John Healy and Kevin Burke

Introduction

The eircom League has been in a poor state recently. We have seen one club go bankrupt, two more receive winding up orders from the Revenue this season (one of those twice), and numerous points deductions threatened. It’s not easy for fans to follow all of this, so we’ve decided to try to hack together a summary.

The authors hope to

1. Inform league fans of the recent non-football events in the league in a fairly brief manner.
2. Generate some discussion on how to improve the administration of both the leagues and clubs.

Financial Woe

There have been three winding up notices issued this season. Two of them have been for Shelbourne (Accolade Ltd.) and one for Cork City (Cork City Investment FC Ltd.).

Cork owed the Revenue about €160,000. Brian Lennox, Cork City’s chairman, initially said that a lot of the debt was historic. [1] Cork claimed to have been underpaying their tax monthly for about two seasons, and said that the issue had been resolved. [2]

Shelbourne owed €300,000 to the Revenue. They claimed that this sum was paid off after their first winding up notice in March [3]. A second winding up order was issued in August after the club failed to pay its first instalment [4]. The club was given until October to clear this debt [5]. They have subsequently claimed to have settled the debt [6].

Only last year, Shamrock Rovers were able to secure a licence in spite of being in such a poor financial state that they had to enter examinership during the season, with debts exceeding €2.36m [7].

The authors suggest that the financial aspect of UEFA licensing is demonstrably lax, and failure to tighten it will see clubs continue to overspend and follow Dublin City. As such, we welcome the wage budget cap that will be introduced next season as a step in the right direction.

Dublin City Go Bankrupt

On the 19th of July, Dublin City FC posted a message on their website to the effect that they had ceased trading [8]. In the course of their five and a half seasons in the league, they had run up debts in the region of €1,500,000 [4]. In spite of their well known financial problems, the announcement came as a surprise - the club had signed Lee Roche just a week before. Their resignation from the league was to be a source of many more problems.

The club had received a UEFA licence at the start of the season. The licensing requires a club to be in the black (have positive equity), or to have a budget for the season with "Explanatory notes including assumptions and risks and comparison of budget to actual figures. Any assumptions must be clearly stated and figures properly supported" [9, section FIN 1.04, pages 104-105]. Pat Costello informed the National League Supporters Association (NLSA) that Dublin City had satisfied all criteria at the start of the season but added that the licensing issue would be tightened again for next season [10]. It has been suggested that Dublin City had secured a licence by budgeting for an average home gate of 1,500 this season, though I cannot find a reference for this.. This is approximately three times their actual gate, if it is true, it is shocking that such a blatant fabrication would go unchallenged by the licensing committee.

The authors suggest that the licensing system in place is not being properly enforced, and that this has to change if the league is to progress. The authors also note that the FAI are in charge of licensing. This means that the merger of the league with the FAI shortly won’t bring us any closer to solving this issue, so reform of the system is urgently needed.

After the Bankruptcy

The reaction of the Board of Control to Dublin City’s bankruptcy was "to expunge the results of all 17 eircom League matches played by Dublin City F.C to date this season." [11] This is in line with the reaction of the English league, for example, to resignations mid-season (e.g. Aldershot, Leeds City and Accrington), though others, such as the Slovenian league in the case of Korotan, voided the second round and left the results from the first third.

Shelbourne appealed the decision, on the grounds that the Board of Control exceeded their powers in making that decision. This was upheld [12], but at a later meeting the Management Committee repeated the decision to expunge the seventeen results [13]. Shelbourne have threatened further action [14].

Regardless of the outcome of these appeals, it has emerged that the rulebook doesn’t allow for a club going bankrupt mid-season. Clubs are actually forbidden from resigning before the end of a season [15, rule 6.4]! This is a surprising state of affairs, and the rules need to be rewritten to acknowledge that clubs might cease to exist at an inconvenient time.

Disciplinary procedures

or Nobody knows the rules

A second issue arising from Dublin City’s bankruptcy was that of player suspensions. The club’s players were immediately free agents, and were snapped up by various other clubs. One of these, Shamrock Rovers, fielded Paul Shiels, who had been suspended while at Dublin City, and who had not served all of his suspension. They were deducted three points. Shamrock Rovers complained that they had not been notified of the suspension [16].

Meanwhile, Derry City were deducted three points for playing Seán Hargan, who was suspended, in a league game with Bohemians. Hargan should have been banned for receiving four yellow cards in the season up to that point, but Derry claimed that they were not informed of this by the league whereas the authorities claimed they were [12]. Derry subsequently got off, seemingly because the notificiation was technically invalid as the disciplinary committee meeting was held on 14th July, and Derry were not informed until 22nd July, meaning that the FAI had not notified the club inside forty-eight hours, as they are required to do [17].

Bohemians were also on the receiving end of a disciplinary problem. They played a suspended player (McGuinness) in their league clash with Shelbourne, which they won 2-1. The club claimed that it had been twice assured by the FAI that they had no players suspended. The FAI deny this, and said Bohemians had been informed of the suspension. They may the club three points and even fine them for claiming that the FAI had told them that the player was not suspended. Shelbourne demanded that the game be replayed [18] [19]. Bohemians were deducted three points [20]. To quote from the statement on their website, "Why nobody from the eircom League chose to inform Bohemian FC of the possible contradictory information being given out is a matter for the eircom League."

The authors suggest that there is a significant communications problem within the disciplinary structure of the league. We propose that the league be required to inform officials of the players suspended for any match they are to referee.

Nobody Knows the Rules - European Version

Drogheda United’s club captain Declan O’Brien was ineligible to play in the second leg of the club’s UEFA Cup match with Norwegian club IK Start. O’Brien was injured for the first leg. UEFA rules state that a player cannot not be added to the squad list for a second round tie unless he has played in the first leg. The club had enlisted the help of the FAI in an appeal, but were told that it had been rejected. [21]

This sort of error is not uncommon, and it seems to the authors that the league should have a member of staff who is knowledgeable regards UEFA rules to constantly liaise with the clubs in Europe.

Conclusion

We have made four concrete suggestions:

• That the licensing system be more strictly enforced.
• That procedures be put in place in case of a club going bankrupt mid-season.
• That the league be required to inform officials of the players suspended for any match they are to referee.
• That the league have staff knowledgeable about UEFA rules constantly liaise with clubs playing in Europe.

References

Disclaimer

We have tried to make this article as factually accurate as possible. However, if there is a factual error, please contact us at stigonline@stigonline.com and we will publish a correction.

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