In the 19 months or so since the Eircom Park project was launched, the chief executive of the FAI, Mr Bernard O'Byrne, has developed something of a knack for being unable to see clouds for the silver linings.
This afternoon at South Dublin County Council's offices in Tallaght, though, he finally seems set to receive some genuinely good news regarding his dream of building a new home for Irish football on the outskirts of Dublin.
The feeling amongst councillors of all parties over the weekend was that the "material contravention" of the county plan needed to allow planning permission for the proposed 45,000-seat stadium in Citywest would get the required support of at least 19 of the council's 26 members.
At least one councillor is expected to miss the meeting, with the result that, assuming all of the others are present, the association can only afford six to vote against the proposal.
Still, the numbers look fairly positive even if it remains far more uncertain whether all of the conditions recommended by the planning department will be approved as well.
In all, 39 conditions have been attached to the permission. While some of these may delay the project, the requirement that will most worry Mr O'Byrne and supporters of the project is the demand for written confirmation from the Department of Defence that the Air Corps' safety concerns about Baldonnel aerodrome have been satisfactorily addressed.
Over the past year the FAI has made several attempts to persuade the Department of Defence that, despite its height, Eircom Park would pose no serious threat to the safe operation of Baldonnel.
The consistent failure to make any progress on the issue has prompted suspicions in Merrion Square that the continued objections are motivated primarily by political considerations.
Though this is emphatically denied by the Department, there are some on the council who sympathise with the FAI's position. Consequently, a move to delete the condition which effectively gives the Department a veto on the project is likely at this afternoon's meeting.
For Mr O'Byrne, who will probably be watching the proceedings from the public gallery, the deletion of this condition would be an important victory.
Not that the issue will end there. Ever since the proposal to build the arena was launched in January of last year, there has been an expectation that, regardless of whether planning permission was granted, the fate of the scheme would eventually be decided by An Bord Pleanala.
Even this week, the Department has made it clear that it is willing to pursue its objections to the stadium with an appeal and then, if necessary, to the courts. Many local residents too, while lacking the financial resources of the Department, are gearing up for the next stage of the fight.
Despite having anticipated such a development, an appeal would leave Mr O'Byrne in real difficulty. Over the past 12 months there has been an increasing level of scepticism within the FAI about the viability of the stadium. And for some time the amount of expenditure on the planning stage of the scheme has been capped at £3 million.
Around £150,000 more than that has already been spent getting this far and so whatever happens today, Mr O'Byrne will have to persuade representatives of cash-strapped clubs and associations from around the State that the goal involved is worth some additional gambling.
It won't be easy, since there are now queries over many of the original costings. Everything from the projected £82 million cost of the scheme to the anticipated revenue has come under increasing scrutiny at a series of sometimes acrimonious meetings.
In fact, the cost has now risen to at least £90 million and in the absence of confirmation from the construction firm, HBG, that it will still be able to build and fit out the ground for the agreed £55 million, critics put the total price tag at closer to £110 million.
Last month this claim was countered with an assertion that the amount of money earmarked for HBG and the other firms involved in the construction stage had always actually been capped at £65 million. However, given the cost of the stadium's sliding roof and removable pitch, both of which are essential to its ability to generate income outside of football, the remaining budget would only be enough to build what Simon Inglis, the English author of many books on stadium design, describes as "a fairly bog-standard premiership facility".
That's a long way from the sort of language that was being used last January in Dublin's Burlington Hotel when the selling of the stadium idea began.
In terms of revenue generation the involvement of International Management Group on the sales and promotion side of things has been central to Mr O'Byrne's claim that the stadium can pay its way once up and running.
Yet only last week the company's Irish representative, Mr Diarmuid Crowley, conceded that many of the seats and corporate boxes which have been said to have been sold have not actually been secured with a deposit.
In addition, the business plan is highly optimistic, according to sceptics such as FAI treasurer Mr Brendan Menton. For instance, the eight sell-out soccer matches projected annually is far in excess of what the association currently manages at the much smaller Lansdowne Road.
Mr O'Byrne has not been helped either by the aggressive tactics of the PR company, Gallagher and Kelly, employed to promote the project in earlier days. Briefings to journalists against National League club officials opposed to the scheme had the effect of hardening attitudes, and despite the firm's efforts, a constant trickle of damaging stories leaked out.
Included in these were details of Mr O'Byrne's bonus for getting the stadium built, some 10 per cent of which, it has emerged over the past couple of weeks, has already been paid.
With the money gone, the PR campaign has become much more low-key and Mr O'Byrne's own faith in his ability to see the project through to completion appeared to waver sufficiently at the start of the summer for him to tell a meeting of FAI directors that he would return to his regular duties if that was what they wanted.
Then, as now, he maintained that he would have no cause for resignation if the project were to fail.
At the association's a.g.m. in July Mr O'Byrne made an emotional appeal to his supporters amongst the junior leagues around the State to keep faith with the plan. The result was a rare victory over the many representatives of the National League who have proved to be such a thorn in his side since Christmas.
Having faced consistent predictions that the stadium would never get planning permission, a positive outcome (particularly one that included the deletion of the clause requiring the approval of the Department of Defence) would be a significant boost for Mr O'Byrne, even if substantial difficulties still remain.
Foremost among those is the need for funding to fight an appeal. He insists that he has a number of parties willing to become equity partners in the scheme, although he has yet to make the terms on offer known.
Part of the difficulty is that the protracted battle within the FAI has left commercial and other backers of the scheme with doubts about Mr O'Byrne's ability to get the stadium built, whatever happens on the planning side.
Even this weekend one councillor, Fianna Fail's John Lahart, said that, while he and many of his colleagues remained supportive of the scheme, a decision to grant permission would have the effect "of putting it up to the FAI to see whether they are still really serious about building the thing".
In the case of Mr O'Byrne, whose name has become synonymous with the project, there's little doubt about his continued desire to see the whole thing through. The key question is whether the same can be said of enough of those around him in Merrion Square.