NATIONAL LEAGUE: The league seems incapable of getting its house in order writes Emmet Malone.

St Patrick's Athletic look like being only one of several parties whose actions will come under severe scrutiny in the wake of news that Mbabazi, the club's Ugandan international, was not properly registered until after the Richmond Park side had played their fifth league game of the season.

When news that Paul Marney had not been registered for the first three games of the season, it was widely assumed that the league's rules, though flawed, would apply.

Nobody believed the situation was the product of anything other than an honest mistake, but the regulations clearly stated that three points should be deducted for each of the three games and representatives of the clubs had allowed that rule to remain unchanged despite it being specifically pointed out to them last year that it allowed the league no latitude in dealing with such a situation.

In the end, there was considerable sympathy for St Patrick's and the penalty, after a battle that stretched all the way to the High Court, was reduced an insignificant fine.

The club can expect no such favours the second time around.

It is now unthinkable that St Patrick's would escape the consequences of not only making the same mistake again but also of omitting to mention the fact while consistently claiming that they were being harshly treated in relation to Marney.

Assuming they are punished this time, the title race is over, Shelbourne having won it by beating Shamrock Rovers last Sunday.

If and when that is confirmed it will mark an ignominious end to a nightmarish season in a league that simply does not seem capable of getting its house in order.

The man brought in to help it do that, Roy Dooney, faces stormy waters ahead as he seeks to justify his decision to sit on the Mbabazi information even as Shelbourne and the FAI were spending money in the High Court.

All of the other senior officials who had anything to do with the affair in any way should also make it entirely clear now what they aware of and when.

Behind the scenes there are some who suggest the latest problem is symptomatic of the casual way in which those at the heart of both the league and association have run their affairs.

For the longer term, what this latest fiasco highlights once again is the inherent recklessness of pursuing what was repeatedly referred to as "seeking a footballing solution to a footballing problem" over the course of the Paul Marney dispute. Such talk is a hangover from an entirely different age.

The leading clubs may be tiny by comparison with their counterparts in Britain and Europe, but the notion they must operate like a business on one hand, but should accept decisions with potentially huge implications for their organisation "in the spirit of football" on the other is absurd. It is not good and it should never happen again.

Just how transparently this current mess is cleaned up will give an early indication of whether there is really the determination to ensure that it doesn't.