Emmet Malone On Soccer: If he actually stays at Liverpool long enough and, less plausibly, West Ham somehow manage to avoid relegation, Javier Mascherano might justifiably view his return to Upton Park next season with some degree of trepidation.

The Argentine international is, however, at least aware of why he might be not be the most popular of players with the punters down Barking way. If he ever runs into any officials from Merrion Square he will presumably be a little more perplexed by the inevitable sense of hostility that accompanies the meeting.

Mascherano's move to Anfield, though, and the Fifa blessing that was required before it could be completed is at the heart of the international clearance controversy that engulfed the League of Ireland last week.

Cork City might contest they knew enough about the rules to seek clearance for Colin Healy and Gareth Farrelly, each of whom had (just about) featured for two other clubs since the start of July, but it seems a little unlikely that a club which just a few month ago was talking about the possibility of having to go part-time would have signed two fairly expensive players if its officials had been aware there was even the remotest possibility they would not be cleared to play before the summer.

What seems clear is either nobody in the league's offices knew about the rule or, at least, no one fully grasped its implications for clubs here even after Liverpool flagged the situation themselves when first expressing an interest in signing the 22-year-old more than two weeks before the January 31st end-of-mid-season transfer window.

After a considerable amount of speculation regarding the number of players affected the league's director, Fran Gavin, stated on Friday that eight individuals, in addition to Healy and Farrelly, had been identified as requiring clearance. There is some annoyance amongst managers that in a number of cases the clubs concerned were only made aware that the relevant registrations could not be completed a matter of weeks after the papers had initially been sent to Merrion Square.

Worse, the rule came into effect in 2005 and it is generally accepted a number of players were, in effect, illegally registered this time last year, something that might have become rather problematic had, say, Shelbourne not won the league and the club's litigation department been entirely on top of its game.

While Fifa, whose president, Sepp Blatter, has been talking up the desirability of the game's major leagues switching to the summer season, must take a good deal of the blame for failing to take countries that have already made the move into account when altering important rules, the handling of the situation here made worse what had already been a difficult close season.

The problems at Limerick and Shelbourne may have been resolved in what are regarded as satisfactory manners by the league's leading officials but both cases raised more uncomfortable questions about the allocation of club licences over the past couple of years.

Amid all of these difficulties, however, you are unlikely to hear too many dissenting voices being raised in public. Almost every conversation with a club official, manager or player these days requires, it seems, clarification of at least one point, over what is on and off the record because of the league's new powers to fine those who "disparage" it in the media.

An early, and slightly comical example of how this new censorship is to be enforced is the recent decision to fine Derry City €5,000 for comments made by one of the club's supporters on the club's website. The site is run and edited by unpaid volunteers and offers, like many others around the country, supporters the opportunity to express opinions on issues relating to City and the league in general.

But when one fan had the audacity to refer to the general handling of the Shelbourne situation as a "fiasco" and suggested the FAI had been "whistling Dixie in the other direction" while the situation unfolded, club officials received first a call from Gavin instructing them to have the offending piece removed and then a letter informing them of the decision to impose a fine.

To put the size of the fine in some sort of context it is as much as the beaten finalists in this year's League Cup will receive in prize money or clubs involved in televised games will share as compensation for loss of gate receipts.

More bizarrely, it is two thirds as large as the fine imposed on Jose Mourinho two years ago when he publicly accused the referee of cheating in his side's English League Cup semi-final against Manchester United. Derry have a turnover of a little more than €1 million per annum while Chelsea's last year was almost 250 times that figure.

City, as it happens, have handed the matter over to their solicitors, thereby teeing up what should prove an interesting early test of the league's wide-ranging new powers. Ultimately, though, the need to resort to such measures only serves to undermine the public confidence of those associated with the organisation that things will be dramatically improved going forward.

Silencing the critics with the threat of punitive action is one thing but believing that things will be well enough run to leave them with little to criticise is quite another. The answer from one senior figure in Merrion Square recently was that "they do this in the Premiership".

If only they had been paying as much attention to the Mascherano affair a couple of months back.