While local residents hailed another costly delay to the development of Eircom Park and Bernard O'Byrne celebrated a small but significant step in the right direction the fundamental difficulties facing the association's chief executive and his stadium plan remained pretty much unaltered last night.
The members of South Dublin County Council may have given the project a qualified green light but with An Bord Pleanala still to come and the development budget already exhausted the association badly needs to acquire political support at a higher level if it is to overcome the difficulties that have consistently dogged their scheme for the best part of a year.
A reminder of how difficult that will be came only a few hours before yesterday's meeting in Tallaght, though when, by a remarkable coincidence, the Taoiseach gave a press briefing on how his baby, Stadium Ireland, is coming along in Government Buildings. Basically, while insisting the scheduling of the meeting was entirely coincidental and again wishing the FAI well with its plans, there was, Mr Ahern came close to admitting, nothing new to report. While this sort of shabby carry-on hardly reflects well on the Government, neither the association nor O'Byrne have exactly covered themselves in glory of late.
The FAI's handling of the public funding issue ("We're not looking for Government backing for the stadium although if they want to post us a cheque we wouldn't say no") has been astonishing. The constant attempts to play down the costs and increase the projected revenue have left onlookers with no option but to treat every claim now made with extreme scepticism. And the fact the issue has come to dominate so many meetings - this year's a.g.m. effectively dealt with nothing else - has made it a major burden on the day-to-day running of the entire organisation.
In contrast, the Government breezes along in the knowledge that most of the difficulties they will encounter over the next five years will be solved by taxpayers. It's easy to see how desperate Bertie Ahern must be to get the FAI to abandon Eircom Park. Without them on board the Government is building a massive ground for the IRFU. On average they play four or five home internationals a year, perhaps one of which would go close to filling the Stadium Ireland at Abbotstown. And of those four or five they may well be forced to play a couple in Belfast over the coming years if talk of a medium-sized stadium there comes to anything.
There has also been talk of everything from Champions League finals to the Olympics being staged in the Government-based site but any chance of the former depends on the support of Merrion Square while talk of the latter remains fanciful. In short the Government intends to build a white elephant of spectacular proportions.
The accompanying campus, pool and other facilities also intended for the site represent worthwhile and interesting projects far more worthy of public-sector backing but the tragedy is these could have been built many years ago for much less money than when the Government acquired land for the purpose in Dublin's docklands, only to lose its nerve.
Viewed alongside Stadium Ireland, Eircom Park - for all its flaws - looks like a model of good sense and prudent planning. While football clubs across Europe have built grounds of a comparable scale, the fact they would play in them more than 20 times has helped to make the number grow. Here, the FAI hope to play 10 games annually, fill it four or five times for concerts and then run more sizeable events than many think it is possible to attract in order to make the thing pay.
Whether it would break even looks doubtful but what is virtually certain is that if the Government's answer to London's Millennium Dome ends up further splitting the market then it is doomed to failure even as Eircom Park's planning permission is finally sorted out.
Between £20 and £30 million in public funds would go quite some way towards getting Eircom Park up and running which, in turn, would make it harder for the Government to press ahead with Stadium Ireland.
Rather than push for some sort of government backing, O'Byrne and company have become embroiled in some sort of game with leading ministers which, given the size of the two parties' respective pockets, they can ill afford to lose.
Having gone this far down the road with their own plan it would be a very painful decision now for the association to change horses. For a start, O'Byrne would likely be a casualty. Still, it would be better than the organisation continuing to tear itself apart over the money involved.
But in the coming weeks we are likely to see a complete reassessment of the project on the association's part. If they do decide to proceed then the considerable headstart they enjoy over their rivals still leaves them in a position to make the running despite yesterday's decision by South Dublin County Council to seek a final ruling on the safety issue which could further delay the project.
Within the organisation O'Byrne has a lot of persuading to do and it seems likely that the sums will have to be revised. What is obvious, though, is that whatever its true purpose the tactic of avoiding a direct appeal to the Government has been a miscalculation. If the nation's football loving leader chooses to deny the game's authorities their chance to build a home for the sport then let everybody see that that is the situation. Because if the project falls apart otherwise then nobody in Merrion Square will have anybody to blame but themselves.
(Emmet Malone can be contacted at emalone@irish-times.ie)
