SOCCER NATIONAL LEAGUE:THE CORK City takeover and licensing sagas look set to run for another week after the attempt by the Revenue Commissioners to have the club's parent company wound up was adjourned to next Monday to allow for the outstanding tax bill to be paid and the FAI decided to defer a decision in relation to the club's licensing application until both the legal and ownership issues have finally been resolved.

Only then, it seems, will the association be able to confirm the fixture list – for a league season that is supposed to start in March – which will be provisionally released tomorrow.

All in all, Cork City’s latest day in the High Court went about as well as could have been hoped for, with the club being given until the close of business tomorrow to sort out a tax bill of €107,653.

The club’s legal representative argued that they would have been able to do this without the need for the hearing, but for the fact that its bank account with the AIB had been frozen, something that prevented the English FA paying in a sum of €158,000, the bulk of which related to the transfer of Kevin Long to Burnley.

Counsel for the Revenue Commissioners wished to proceed with the winding up order regardless, but, not for the first time, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy decided to give the club another opportunity to save itself.

She ordered that the account be unfrozen and that the Revenue debt be paid out of it as soon as the funds due from England are received. She then put the matter back to next Monday so as to be able to deal with it personally.

In the circumstances, there appears at this stage to be no reason why the authorities will not get their money, but, if somehow they do not, one suspects the club will have its work cut out to win any more reprieves from the bench.

“It’s good news because we haven’t been wound up,” said John O’Sullivan, the chairman of supporters’ group FORAS outside the court afterwards, “but I think that Justice Laffoy seems to have run out of patience, judging by her comments at the end”.

The hope is that next week’s appearance will be a formality and that, in addition to having paid off its tax arrears, the club will be under new ownership by then.

The consortium attempting to take it over, of which FORAS is a part, confirmed yesterday that they had finally reached an agreement with Tom Coughlan regarding the transfer of shares in the holding company, Cork City Investments Ltd although the sale will not be concluded until FORAS and its partners, the businessmen Jim McCarthy, Peter Gray and Michael O’Connell, are sure that the level of indebtedness, now put at somewhere between €600,000 and €800,000 does not significantly exceed their expectations.

Clearly desperate not to lose another of the country’s leading clubs from the premier division for a season that is now less than three weeks away, the FAI decided to view yesterday’s developments as representing a light at the end of the tunnel and deferred a decision on the club’s top flight license until the situation has been clarified.

There is an element of chicken and egg about the situation with the association anxious to see the takeover completed before granting a license and the new consortium determined that there will be no takeover without the license, but there appears to be enough communication between those two parties to ensure that an accommodation can be reached as long as no financial surprises lie in store.

“The FAI decision has given us time,” said McCarthy, who could well end up as the club’s new chairman in the event that the takeover is completed, “and it’s important that we use it now to get to the bottom of the creditors’ situation as quickly as we possibly can”.

In the event that that does throw up some unpalatable surprises and the deal falls apart, then the hope last night was that FORAS’ application for a first division license might still represent a viable Plan B.

O’Sullivan said that the basis for entering a team in the first division next month is in place and that a candidate for the position of “Director of Football” is ready to step into the position very quickly in the event that the fallback plan becomes the only option available to the supporters.”

A decision on the FORAS application was also deferred by the licensing committee until the situation with regard to the Cork City one has been resolved next week.

Drogheda United, meanwhile, got its license to play in the top flight after winning approval for its revised budget for the coming campaign and the way for the new Derry City to play in the first division has been paved by the reformulated club receiving a license to play at that level.

The licenses granted yesterday were as follows:

Premier: Bohemians, Bray Wanderers, Dundalk, Drogheda United, Galway United, Longford Town, Monaghan United, Shelbourne, Shamrock Rovers, Sligo Rovers, St Patrick’s Athletic, Sporting Fingal, UCD and Waterford United.

First Division: Athlone Town, Derry City, Finn Harps, Limerick, Mervue United, Salthill Devon, Wexford Youths;

A Championship: Castlebar Celtic, Cobh Ramblers, FC Carlow, Tralee Dynamos and Tullamore Town.