Sideline Cut/Keith Duggan: Say one thing for FAI president Milo Corcoran, he has an interesting sense of timing. For the past fortnight, the airwaves bristled with treasurer John Delaney's heartfelt and often convincing state of the nation addresses.

We are laying our poor and hapless FAI souls at your feet, John said. And we, the plain people of Ireland, nodded approvingly. We are going to tear up the book and start again from scratch, he promised. Solemnly we, the jury, agreed that this was the only thing to do. And we shall move with great speed and urgency to invoke these sweeping reforms, John vowed. Anything slower than the speed of light would be unacceptable, indicated the wronged. We shall bestow our power to the people, cried John. Hallelujah, we returned. The revolution will be great and it will be televised (but only on Sky), he declared.

He spoke with passion and that quality shunned for many decades by the FAI, clarity. He was earnest and enthusiastic and, radically, never once fell back on that wistful, definitive time close to the hearts of all football men, the end of the day. Delaney sounded modern and capable and forthright, and he soothed the nerves of a nation for whom the FAI has become, strangely, the new church, the only institution we seem to care about anymore.

And then, just when the waters were calm again, up cropped Milo - doe-eyed and kind of likeable with that Old English Sheepdog 'do - to breezily announce, in the manner of the work-shy Irish building contractor, that this oul Genesis lark, this reform, could take anything up to half a decade to bring about. That the people of Ireland have, in other words, a better chance of hitching a lift in a Luas carriage than of seeing the brand new FAI that we were encouraged to dream about over the last few weeks.

It has yet to be clarified exactly what the weather was like in Athens but it is becoming obvious that the FAI have a low immunity system to places with a warm climate. They say and do strange things. There may have been a gulf between what Milo meant and what he actually communicated. But the time for such chasms has finished, or at least that is the promise. Little wonder that John Delaney was at his wit's end a few days ago. This is a time when the FAI needs to speak with one voice, or possibly no voice at all. They need to listen. Listen to Bertie or to John Giles or Eamo or, heaven forbid, even the GAA's Seán McCague when he says things.

Seán speaks like a firm but fair national school teacher in straight, unadorned language which, even when he is being intentionally ambivalent, leaves people in no doubt as to what he means. This is the kind of style the FAI needs to adapt. But first they need to listen, to anyone. Even Ronan Keating. You Say It Best When You Say Nothing At All. Let that be the rule of tongue for the next while. Enough has been said and people are tired.

The FAI has been an easy and perhaps deserving target over the past few months. But I for one have been uneasy about the casual way the organisation has been branded as a joke because by inference, hundreds of unknown people affiliated to the organisation are being insulted for trying their best to pass on their love and knowledge of the game to youngsters.

The FAI is probably doing an awful lot of unseen things very well. Sport in this country is, across the board, a struggle and survives and thrives primarily on the good will of volunteers.

It is no coincidence that Kevin Fahy, who has temporarily stepped in as general secretary in the wake of Brendan Menton's resignation, is a teacher. The FAI was, until now, something he attended to in his free time, after school hours - and the hours he wasn't training school kids.

THE problem with the FAI lies in the management of its chief theatre, the Irish team, the genuine glamour story of Irish soccer and an entity that really has little to do with the organic game that so many unknown soldiers in the association continue to nurture against the odds.

Even before Saipan, the Irish team held a broad fascination, with its adventurous mystique built during the Charlton years, its stable of wealthy and, em, sophisticated young stars and the attendant soap dramas that regularly spill from the back of the London tabloids.

The power brokers within the FAI were just too small and ill-equipped and timid to deal with such a carnival of personalities, but too stubborn and arrogant to admit to themselves that this was so.

In their failure, they stained the association at large and the many who give their time to promote soccer in this country with little funds and less thanks. Now comes the payback. The palace has been stormed from the inside out. The FAI has been forced to publicly declare itself inept and inefficient and irrelevant. It has done the brave thing and asked for help.

The "sport" on offer from Athens on Wednesday night was like a grim glimpse at the possible future of Irish international soccer. Sure, we had some good players out there, but it was really awful, awful stuff.

That is not new, of course. Many of the unforgettable big nights for the Irish team have involved games that caused the world at large to shudder. But they mattered, they had us at the edge of our seats, had us weeping with pride.

The thing about Wednesday is that it was of no consequence. As it stands, our current campaign is on the edge of an abyss. One more poor result and the rest of the games will be academic. Watch the hysteria fall away then. Watch the beloved heroes slide out of people's affections. In the summer, Irish soccer was both fashion and frenzy. But people are less patient and less loyal than they were 15 or even 10 years ago and if the entertainment isn't there, they flick away.

There should be many good days ahead of a young and quite gifted Irish squad but it is not impossible to see those slowly and irreversibly vanish. It is not beyond the realms of possibility to see Irish soccer exist in the kind of vacuum of Athens last Wednesday, a game unmissed and invisible, played out in cheerless stadiums with a satellite television audience for company. Nothing or nobody is permanent, not even, sadly, Roy Keane.

Logic dictates that the Republic of Ireland, a small country with a modest if proud soccer league, should not achieve as it has done at the global soccer pageants. But constantly we have both inherited and also produced enough players to cobble together a never less than competitive squad that has given the country some great times.

If those are to continue, the FAI needs to be prudent. Not one word should be uttered without deliberation and consultation. It may take five years to implement the finer points of Genesis but why say it? At least why say it right now? It is time to go to work. A little less conversation, a little more action.