St Patrick's Athletic deducted 15 points for the Mbabazi affair andleague title goes to Shelbourne as a result. Emmet Malone reports

Minutes after they had moved to within two points of Shelbourne at the top of the National League Premier Division table, St Patrick's Athletic officials were left visibly shaken by the news that they had been deducted 15 points for playing Uganda international Mbabazi in five games while he was not properly registered.

After the club had yesterday afternoon sent an eight-page reply to the league's original queries relating to the player's status at the start of the season, a panel was assembled in Merrion Square to hear the case.

When St Patrick's were informed of the move, they reportedly declared that they were unavailable to attend and so Michael Hyland, Donal Crowther and Declan Ó Luanaigh proceeded without the club. They subsequently decided that the club's case, as made in the written submission from their legal representative, was not sufficiently strong to persuade them that the rules had not been breached and so, in accordance with Rule 16 (a), they were docked three points for each of the five games involved.

Told of the news, club president Tim O'Flaherty responded: "we couldn't have lost the points, there hasn't been a hearing".

When he was told that the decision had been made, both he and manager Pat Dolan declined to comment, although Dolan complained bitterly about the manner in which he was receiving the news.

Earlier in the day, in their reply to the league's allegations that Mbabazi had been unregistered for the first five games of the season, St Patrick's argued that because a copy of his contract was sent to Merrion Square when the FAI was in contact with FIFA about the player, the association was in a position to establish the problem was no more than a clerical error.

"This comes down to the question of what a registration form is," said the club's solicitor Maurice Lyons. "What it is supposed to do is reflect what has been agreed between a player and the club he is to play for. In the case of Mbabazi, the player had signed a contract with St Patrick's until the end of this season, but on the registration form there was a slip-up and the last year was entered.

"But we have argued that under law of contract he was entitled to play for the club and we should simply be allowed to correct the error on the form. After all, the FAI were in contact with FIFA about him not on the basis of his registration form, but on his contract. They can't have it both ways.

"If they utilised his contract in their dealings with FIFA, they can't claim that they weren't aware of its contents and if they were aware of them then they can't argue that he wasn't validly signed for this season."

The communication between the FAI and FIFA took place in March of last year after Mbabazi had visited Argentina and there was some concern that the Ugandan might attempt to sign for another club there. But the contract involved was not the player's first at Richmond Park and his registration had been lodged with the league the previous November (of 2000) on the basis of an earlier agreement.

This may also have been sent to Merrion Square at an earlier date to assist the association in its attempts to secure his international clearance and, if so, then league officials would have wanted to check it to ensure that it too ran until the end of this season before considering the validity of the club's case as set out yesterday.

As it turned out they appear to have decided that the case lacked sufficient merit and the Inchicore club will now almost certainly appeal within the next day or so before, if necessary, considering their legal options.

The league also announced last night that it would conduct an investigation into the validity of all of this season's registration forms and said that where breaches of the rules were found, then the clubs involved would be treated in the same way as St Patrick's Athletic.

In the league's other ongoing registration dispute, the hearing to consider appeals from Dublin City and Waterford United in relation to a decision to dock the latter club three points for playing Noel Hunt while he was not registered will be held on Monday afternoon.