Soccer: Anybody who has followed the National League's progress over the years could be forgiven for fearing Brian Kerr's wide-ranging plea to clubs last week, for what amounted to little more than common sense during the season, will fall on deaf ears.

There was polite applause from club officials for the Republic of Ireland manager's comments on players' wages, financial responsibility and the need for a sense of collective purpose.

Within hours, however, Shamrock Rovers chairman Tony Maguire was telling a meeting of supporters he couldn't guarantee the squad would be paid for even the next two weeks.

If recent seasons are anything to go by we should get our first major public falling out between rivals outfits before the month is over.

Kerr mentioned during his speech at the league's official launch that he loved the domestic game and nobody would doubt the claim. While some of the more devoted supporters of individual clubs here would like to see dramatic growth, and a day when a significant proportion of the senior national squad was drawn from the league's leading sides, Kerr might point with some small degree of alarm to the experience of this week's World Cup opponents.

Their own league looks, at first glance, a major success story, but on closer inspection it is something of a cautionary tale.

Israel's biggest clubs have, over the past few seasons, achieved in Europe what Irish sides can only dream of. The country has climbed to 15th in Uefa's ranking list, 24 places above Ireland, thanks to strong performances in the Champions League and Uefa Cup by clubs like Maccabi Haifa and the two big Tel Aviv sides, Maccabi and Hapoel.

The country's population is just two million larger than that of the Republic and they are, just as the Irish are, bombarded with live games from foreign leagues, primarily the English Premiership, yet, in contrast to the group that assembled in Dublin today, almost the entire squad named yesterday by Avraham Grant is locally based.

Despite the shiny facade, though, the reality is Israeli football squandered the opportunity it engineered for itself in the late 1990s when huge international investment poured into the country in the wake of the Oslo accord and the country's biggest clubs carved themselves out a piece of the action.

Attendances initially rose but the trend has been dramatically reversed during the past few seasons and while most clubs are surviving due to the largesse of wealthy benefactors, a number have only narrowly avoided bankruptcy.

One contributory factor to the current difficulties came three years ago with what became known as the "Refs in Red" scandal left many fans disillusioned. The story involved a match-fixing racket that came to light when a defender who had been bought off committed a series of increasingly ludicrous tackles inside his own area and the referee showed a correspondingly bewildering reluctance to award a penalty.

Since then there has been a television rights deal that has resulted in games all being switched to pay-per-view as a result of which few are watched by more than 50,000 at home and the staggering of matches over four days each week to suit broadcasters has further contributed to a collapse in attendances.

At Maccabi Tel Aviv a boycott by supporters angry over a whole range of issues resulted in just 500 people paying into one recent cup game. Rivals Hapoel, meanwhile, who three years ago dumped Chelsea out of the Uefa Cup on the way to the competition's quarter-finals, managed to run up debts of some €50 million despite being rather well supported with average crowds of 10,000 and many of the first team left after not receiving their wages.

Maccabi Haifa, by comparison, remain better resourced and much better organised, but even its owner said recently that the club must start to pay its own way. A major problem has been the wages paid to players, with the highest earners pocketing around €750,000 a year. The result is that clubs are crippled by the struggle to sustain budgets that approach €20 million. Most of the players that will face Ireland fail to achieve their full potential because leaving to play in stronger leagues where they would improve would almost invariably involve very substantial drops in their income.

Perhaps Israel had a Kerr figure calling, a few years back, for financial restraint and a broader responsibility. If so, let's hope that a little more attention is paid to our league during the months ahead because there is nothing like the same scope here for getting it all so terribly wrong.

Shay Given could miss Ireland's first training session of the week at Portmarnock in Dublin today after picking up a hip injury in Saturday's Premiership draw with Portsmouth at St James' Park.

The goalkeeper revealed yesterday that he had picked up a knock in the game and had required a pain-killing injection in order to be able to continue. He said, however, that he expects to be fit for Saturday's World Cup qualifier in Tel Aviv.

Avraham Grant, meanwhile, named his squad for the game against Ireland yesterday with the elevation of under-21 international striker Moshe Biton to the senior panel for the first time the only real surprise.

All of the Israeli coach's regular starters are included with star midfielder Yossi Benayoun of Racing Santander now looking a certainty to be fit to start despite a knee injury.

"I have been talking to Yossi a lot about this game for the last two weeks," said the 24-year-old Racing player's team-mate, goalkeeper Dudu Awat, "and we feel that none of the teams in the group - Ireland, France or Switzerland - should frighten us. I feel that a draw against Ireland would be a very respectable result for us."

ISRAEL SQUAD: Awat (Racing Santander), Cohen (Maccabi Petach-Tikva), Elimelech (Hapoel Tel-Aviv), Harazi (Maccabi Haifa), Benado (Maccabi Haifa), Ben Haim (Bolton), Gershon (Hapoel Tel-Aviv), Keisi (Hapoel Petach-Tikva), Saban (Hapoel Petach-Tikva), Rabah (Hapoel Bnei Sakhnin), Tal (Maccabi Haifa), Badier (Maccabi Haifa), Nimni (Beitar Jerusalem), Afek (UD Salamanca), Benayoun (Racing Santander), Suan (Hapoel Bnei Sakhnin), Zandberg (Maccabi Haifa), Revivo (FC Ashdod), Shivhon (Hapoel Petach-Tikva), Katan (Maccabi Haifa), Balili (Kayserispor), Golan (Maccabi Petach-Tikva), Biton (Bnei Yehuda Tel-Aviv).