Drogheda United's ability to fulfil this evening's Eircom League Premier Division fixture against St Patrick's Athletic in Inchicore remained in doubt last night as the club's players continued to insist that they would not take the field until an agreement is reached on the payment of their wages.
The club last week sought to cut player salaries by 30 per cent, a move rejected by its squad. The club's inability to meet its current outgoings means that most of the panel are now owed a week's pay, while two are due considerably more than that.
The players, who are members of the Professional Footballers Association of Ireland, issued a statement yesterday making it clear that they would not play again until a number of issues were cleared up.
Money is the main problem, but also high on the list was the question of whether they were properly insured against injury by the club. Some progress appeared to have made on this front late yesterday afternoon with both United's manager Harry McCue and chairman Peter Delaney claiming to have obtained documentation from the FAI to establish that their players are indeed covered.
Fran Gavin of the PFAI said, however, that after a week of discussions regarding the situation there was a need to address all of the players involved and reach a broad-ranging agreement on how the financial problems are going to be dealt with.
"There's a huge amount at stake here, particularly for the seven players who are full-time professionals and depending on their earnings from the club to pay their mortgages," he said.
Gavin is expecting word from Delaney this morning on how the situation may be resolved. The players have apparently offered to take a smaller pay cut on the basis they'll get the money back later, but there are still considerable differences between the sides.
The club's problems appear to be considerable with the serious downturn in attendances which has accompanied the team's recent run of poor form and the failure of the club's commercial side to generate the revenues expected, leaving United - which runs four schoolboy sides in addition to the National League team - with an income well short of its roughly €10,000 per week running costs.
"I think what has happened here is that about 20 small problems have mounted up to give us one pretty big problem," said Delaney. "But it's a question of our cash-flow having been adversely affected by a number of factors and my feeling is that we can get this game played and then start talking again Saturday morning, then we can find a way through the situation."
He added that if the players would agree to talk about back wages tomorrow, then paying the roughly 25 strong squad their money for this week "might be the least of our problems".
Delaney, however, said "the next 36 hours will be very difficult, I'd be lying if I told you anything else". The situation is complicated by the fact that a meeting was to take place between other people already involved in United and a number of potential investors in the club. Delaney was not involved in these talks and conceded that if they were successful the upshot would almost certainly be an attempt to oust him.
