In the United States, the lives of professional sports stars intersect with those of ordinary people in a most interesting way when it comes to the issue of sports stadiums.

It is a reassuring sign of the limitations of the cult of hero worship that Americans are prepared to wave goodbye to their beloved teams when those teams come proffering begging bowls and looking for new, multi-million dollar facilities to be financed from the public purse.

The issue raises all sorts of interesting points. Sports organisations point to the economic impact which their presence in a city has. There isn't a big tradition in the US of fans travelling to a rival's venue, but big time sport claims that its presence in a city not only shakes loose a lot of money locally, but that there are also all sorts of intangibles, like civic pride and morale, which come into play when a big league team puts your city on the map.

It is an argument which makes and breaks politicians, and in the last 10 years it has spread like bushfire from city to city across the United States. Teams have upped and left (LA has no gridiron team) and others have threatened to do so (the New England Patriots flirted with Hartford, Connecticut, for six months last year).

There is no sign of a satisfactory solution. Some cities finance new stadia by levying a small tax on hotel room occupation to relieve the pain on citizens. How refreshed they would all be by the current scenario here in magical mystical Celtic Tiger Ireland.

As Croke Park grows ever more behemothlike on the north inner city skyline, its top deck may soon offer a vista across the city of the least used major stadia in the world.

Just as tourists mosey around the Balkans looking at the great and tumbled statues of Lenin and his team-mates, perhaps we will treat our visitors to tours of our own white elephant graveyard. We may even attract two or three gridiron football teams of our own.

We have the following bizarre set of circumstances: the FAI are seeking funds to build their "state of the art" facility, to be erected in west Dublin. "The Arena" will hold 45,000 people beneath its retractable roof on those days when the Irish soccer team aren't playing useful but unpopular Balkan states.

The Government, in cahoots with JP McManus and his friends, have been pushing an 80,000-seater on the nation. This, like The Arena, will be State of the Art.

And the dear old IRFU, whose bespoke garments have insufficient pockets to carry all their oodles of money about in, shall be courted like well-dowried daughters to throw in their lot with one party or another.

The IRFU possess the grubbiest old national rugby pitch in Europe, but it's set in a nice area. They may redevelop Lansdowne Road. They may sell it. Where they hold their three or four big shindigs a year isn't a pressing worry as yet.

There's more to the stadia madness, of course. Owen O'Callaghan is sitting on his site for a £90 million facility to be built in Neilstown, Co Dublin, and BLE are hopeful of bringing Morton Stadium in Santry up to the measure of their modest needs.

This is pure, undiluted craziness for a country which hosts no major professional sports teams. None of the people who wish to spend small fortunes on the building of facilities have put forward any concrete proposals as to how Dublin might ensure the viability of one or other of these by putting us into the frame for a home franchise should a European super league ever become a soccer reality.

As things stand, all long-term planning has been abandoned in favour of the head-butting contest now in progress between the Government and the FAI.

THE GENESIS of this unfortunate spectacle appears to have been a personality clash between key figures on either side of the table. The first unedifying evidence of a problem which we detected was the almost simultaneous announcements from the Government and the FAI that they were both building stadia. Bernard O'Byrne, of the FAI, made his announcement while still a member of the feasibility committee examining the Government proposal.

The FAI deserve credit for the ambition and professionalism of their plans, and one readily understands the feelings of soccer people who want at last to have a home which Irish soccer can call its own. Since Dalymount Park was permitted to crumble, this has been a yearning of many of the faithful.

It makes little sense, however. The FAI stages maybe seven games a year, including friendlies and group qualifying games against minnows. The Arena may be feasible, but it scarcely represents the best use of resources for the FAI.

On the table from the Government is a stadium with an 80,000 capacity. For an outlay of nothing the FAI would have access to the income from the sale of executive boxes and 10-year tickets, etc, and would escape the headaches of building and borrowing. For an outlay of zilch, the FAI could get on with building and promoting the game of soccer in Ireland.

Last week saw one of the most extraordinary pieces of politicking we have seen in a long time. The Government, presented with a wish list from the FAI, asked not why the taxpayer should finance a professional sports body or, just out of curiosity, what happened to all the Big Jack era loot and the Sky money; no, the Government said, well, we might have the £11 million and, uhm, we might not: it depends on what you think of our national stadium.

It was a depressing freeze frame of silliness. The Government feasibility report on a national stadium, which will be delivered in September, will of course find that a national stadium is feasible. With so much money floating about and so much goodwill there to be picked up, the building of the BertieDome will be a reality.

Neither the FAI nor the Government have emerged with much credit from the conduct of this debate, but for once the Government are probably right. A major stadium constructed in the docklands would not only be attractively accessible, it could be a key part of the regeneration of that part of the city. Such a development should house the Council for Sport, offices for those sports bodies interested in taking them up and a branch of the national coaching centre now blossoming in Limerick. There should be restaurants, hotels, memorabilia shops, maybe a shopping mall.

The city cries out for something imaginative. Let's build it and get back to the business of developing a coherent national plan for sport.