SOCCER REPUBLIC OF IRELAND:AS LIMERICK officials travelled to Dublin yesterday for a league meeting where they are understood to have receivd considerable support from rivals over the continuing refusal of the FAI to grant permission for their proposed friendly against Barcelona, association officials have confirmed that League of Ireland clubs were never made aware of any restriction on them in relation to the organisation of major games against foreign opposition.

The association has told Limerick the game cannot go ahead on the basis that it is prohibited under the terms of a contract it has with an agent from granting permission for games that might attract a crowd of more than 15,000 spectators.

Speaking yesterday, however, the association’s communications director, Peter Sherrard, confirmed the clubs had never actually been told of any such restriction. Rather, they are simply obliged to accept the association has a power of veto thanks to the sweeping nature of the licensing agreement which all clubs are forced to sign if they want to take part in the league.

Sherrard acknowledged, however, the Manchester United friendly is unaffected by the “third party agreement” despite it having apparently been organised directly by the association as opposed to through the agents to whom the associations is supposed to be tied and the near certainty of a capacity 50,000 attendance.

“It’s very simple,” he said yesterday. “Any games with a capacity of over 20,000 (this figure was later revised downwards in a lengthy statement) we can’t authorise . . . (but) we’re able to go ahead with that (the United game).”

Limerick again insisted last night that it had only been made aware of the capacity of the proposed venue for the game being an issue when the media sought a reaction to a previous FAI statement. It also contested a number of other points made in yesterday’s communication from Abbotstown.

Sherrard, meanwhile, again declined to name the company (Kentaro, the firm that organised the recent friendly against Brazil are the obvious candidates) whose agreement with the association is supposed to be at the heart of the current impasse, or reveal if there are any other restrictions on the way clubs run the business side of their operations due to third party agreements which it has signed up to but declined to mention to anyone.

The sense at many clubs around the country is bound to be that the association simply feels its need are greater than Limerick’s, a feeling that ties fairly neatly in with the widespread belief that sales of premium seats have fallen well short of projections.

There have also been many questions regarding the policy of targeting clubs at all levels of the game for sales, an approach that threatens to channel money up from the grassroots of the game towards the association rather than in the other direction, as had been promised when the plans for the stadium and the premium ticketing had been unveiled.

A number of club officials have said they have come under considerable pressure to buy seats while others appear to have done so in the hope or belief it would be viewed in a positive light when it came time to deal with the association in relation to other matters.

Many simply felt, at the time the scheme was launched, it was overly ambitious and the association’s president, David Blood, has confirmed the organisation turned down an offer for a company looking to purchase all of the seats in one go in order to resell them.

Delaney has previously declined to comment when asked about such an offer, which is variously rumoured to have been worth anything from €80 million to €105 million to the FAI (which will pay some €90 million to fund its part of the stadium redevelopment), but Blood acknowledged it had been received only to be rejected after consideration at board level in what were far better times economically.

“We did feel confident enough that we could sell our stake,” he said. “We still do. The thought at the time was that we would be in a good position to do that. But the downturn in the economy has affected everybody.

“As soon as the finance of the country comes on stage, I think we will quite dramatically turn things around.

“It’s easy in hindsight to say we should have done this (or) that but at the time we made these decisions, we thought about them. We just didn’t say no. It was thought out well, we feel.”

Despite a suggestion that almost 20 other clubs will, in the wake of yesterday’s meeting, send a letter to the association expressing their support for Limerick, few around Jackman Park will be expecting a sudden change of heart.

It seems safe to assume, though, that when making the decision to reject the chance to sell their premium seats in one go, the FAI’s board members really didn’t expect that things might reach the stage where they could be obliged to treat hard-pressed League of Ireland outfits like this.