The FAI's officers will meet again late next week to finalise their plan to implement the recommendations of the Genesis report before presenting it to the association's board of management and council in Dundalk next Friday. Emmet Malone reports.

They met yesterday in Dublin to discuss the implementation strategy and, with the help of representatives from the Irish Sports Council, moved closer to finalising their proposals on how best to act on the Scottish company's highly critical report.

"It's now about coming up with proper structures to help get the changes we need to make made," said the association's treasurer, John Delaney, yesterday.

"We've already had help from the Sports Council and from Genesis and the process is going well, but we still have a few things that need to be ironed out before Friday's meeting. That will probably be done when we get together again towards the end of next week."

Delaney said he was satisfied that the time frame involved was still in line with his original prediction that substantial progress would be evident within 12 months. He described the controversy surrounding FAI president Milo Corcoran's comments in Greece this week, to the effect that a five-year period represented a more realistic schedule, as being "a storm in a tea cup".

The expectation is that the officers' plans will be presented to the board of management on Friday and, if approved, they will then go forward to the council. The proposal is likely to involve the allocation of a budget for implementation, and if everything is given the go-ahead then work could start almost immediately on hiring a new chief executive.

"We don't know how people will take all of this, we have to put it to them and see how the floor reacts, but I am confident that we're moving in the right direction," observed Delaney last night.