Eircom League commissioner Roy Dooney has insisted the case against St Patrick's Athletic concerning the registration of the club's Ugandan international, Charles Mbabazi Livingstone, will be largely unaffected by the claims from Richmond Park yesterday that 28 of the 40 forms they inspected recently in Merrion Square did not fully comply with the organisation's rules.

St Patrick's Athletic made the claim as part of their appeal against the deduction of 15 points imposed on the club last Friday night.

But Dooney said the information will be considered as "part of the overall investigation we are currently conducting into the forms we have on file here. That investigation won't be affected in any way by these claims, although obviously we'll look into any information that we have received from outside parties."

Dooney said that while the investigation would be completed within the next couple of days, no indication of how clubs might be affected by the league's commitment to strictly impose its rules once it has fully assessed the situation will be made public until after the next full management committee meeting on April 8th.

"Obviously I'm not going to get into talking about what sort of proportion of forms might have difficulties attached to them, or get into giving a running tally," he said. "We will make all of the information available to that meeting before releasing any of the details to outside parties."

Maurice Lyons, the solicitor acting for St Patrick's Athletic, last night said the 28 players at the centre of their review of the documentation were drawn from Shamrock Rovers, Shelbourne, Bohemians and Cork City.

Meanwhile, the league trophy will not be presented to either of the Dublin clubs on Sunday unless Shelbourne finish more than 15 points ahead of St Patrick's.