Tallaght Stadium:Next Friday the High Court will deliver judgment on the application for leave to appeal by Dublin GAA club Thomas Davis in relation to the decision of South Dublin County Council to develop the stadium on Whitestown Way in Tallaght as a soccer-only stadium.

The court's decision won't lead to the resolution of the substantive issue but it will mark the latest phase in a saga that has undermined relations between the GAA and the Minister for Arts Sport and Tourism John O'Donoghue.

It was the minister's decision to refuse funding for a multi-sport stadium that caused the SDCC to reverse its decision in favour of such a development, taken in December 2005. Two months later, after it had been made clear no funds would be made available for the additional development necessary to extend the venue in order to accommodate Gaelic games, the council reversed its decision.

Within the GAA there has been anger at the fact that as soon as the association had agreed to open Croke Park to other sports, their own games have been denied access to two major amenities - Tallaght and Lansdowne Road - after having been initially led to believe that they would be included.

It's four years since the Strategic Review Committee floated the idea of dividing Dublin into north and south for games administration and representative purposes. The notion tanked but it helped focus attention on the lack of infrastructure on the south side of the city. The proposed stadium in Seán Walsh Park is in a pivotal location for any sport seeking profile in a significant population centre. The FAI is keen that soccer should have that vantage point but the GAA is equally interested.

Soccer interests believe having been in receipt of substantial public funding, the GAA is now selfishly obstructing a rival sport's development project. The GAA view is all its schemes to have received public funding have been largely paid for by the association and that there is no precedent for a municipal facility of this nature being developed with public money and handed exclusively to one sport, let alone a professional soccer club.

Tallaght Stadium has been a project for the last 10 years. Thirteen acres of land was granted to Shamrock Rovers in order that the club, homeless since the sale of their traditional Milltown ground to property developers over 20 years ago, might establish a new home in the huge suburb.

Work on the project had to be shelved, however, in 2001 with large sums of money owed to the building contractor, who was still owed an unpaid arbitration award of € 2.3 million at the end of 2005. No work has taken place on the site since, leaving only a partially built stand on one side of the ground.

Two years later agreement was reached between the Dublin County Board, local GAA club Thomas Davis and the then board of Shamrock Rovers that the development be jointly completed. It was a non-binding agreement from which the soccer club subsequently withdrew.

Given the ongoing stasis the SDCC refused to extend Shamrock Rovers' planning permission and proposed to repossess the site with a view to developing it as a municipal soccer stadium.

Following representations by Thomas Davis and the Dublin board that the stadium plans should be extended to facilitate Gaelic games, the SDCC voted unanimously to develop the site as a multi-sport facility. It was at this stage the Minister let it be known he wouldn't be paying for such a development.

"We (the Government) invested €110 million in Croke Park and they (the GAA) deserved it," said O'Donoghue a month later. "We have overseen a situation whereby 34 per cent of the funding allocated under the sports capital programme go to them and they deserve it. We have told them we will help them with the 26 acres of land they want to develop at Rathcoole (a site allocated to the Dublin board which is earmarked for a centre of excellence training facility and which it is argued by the board is an unsuitable stadium location), on the same side of the city . . .

"But when the Tallaght proposal initially came before me it was as a home for Shamrock Rovers and I still believe there is a need for two 10,000-capacity soccer stadiums in Dublin and that Tallaght is one of them. We made an agreement in relation to the matter and when we make one of those we abide by it . . . I am disappointed by the attitude of some of the (GAA) officials."

That was over a year ago but recently the Minister said he wouldn't change his mind "until hell freezes over".

If Thomas Davis are successful next week, there will be a full hearing on the stadium and the GAA case will be heard in full. If the application fails, there is the likelihood of an appeal and a ramped-up political campaign. More pertinently in the current context there will be a General Election before any decision is taken and in all likelihood a new Minister for Sport.