So today, or some day soon, it looks as if Bernard O'Byrne will fall upon his sword and the idea of No Income Park will expire with him. When that happens, there is time for relief but no space for gloating. We can give thanks that the sour poker game between Bernard and Bertie Ahern has ended without the FAI having to mortgage their offices, but we have to question the vision of a Taoiseach who made a good part of his reputation out of being the sort of negotiator who could bring bitterly divided parties together in the early hours and make them shake hands on Morning Ireland.
This time ego led him by the hand all the way. He has been childish and often spiteful in the course of his rivalry with the FAI.
Bernard O'Byrne will feel sore, but he has had a good ride. He went from being the security officer presiding over the Ireland-England debacle in 1995 to being the chief executive of the FAI the following year, a leap which suggested that he was not only bulletproof but took a keen interest in the share price of Kryptonite.
I believe Bernard O'Byrne was well-intentioned, but with regard to the vainglorious attempt to build a home for Irish football (and other entertainment ventures), he has for quite a while resembled the cartoon figure who runs over the edge of the cliff but keeps on running on nothing but air and momentum before a long whistling sound and a cloud of dust heralds his fall.
His old adversary, Brendan Menton, has played his hand shrewdly, and with O'Byrne's apparent failure to produce all the relevant information before today's meeting, Menton holds the moral high ground. It is time for those who have backed Bernard O'Byrne this far to decide whether they want to go to the brink. If he comes back from the dead, they are heroes. If the FAI collapses, they are goats. Menton needs just another four votes to make Bernard walk the plank. If it doesn't happen today, only an act of God will prevent it from happening soon.
When he looks back, O'Byrne will realise, perhaps, that some of the problems and hostility he has encountered have their roots in the events which led to the shafting of Louis Kilcoyne back in the spring of 1996.
But the weight of his problems have come from the tendency of the pro-No Income Park group to let the wish be father to the thought in respect to key elements of the development. Patrons of international games at Lansdowne Road will have become familiar by now with the irritatingly chirpy claims made over the PA with regard to the stunning progress of No Income Park. Such plaintive desperation hasn't been heard since they were shifting the "last of the cheeky Charlies" in Moore Street back in the 1970s.
For some time now, people within the sports/leisure business have been expressing scepticism about claims from the FAI that they have already sold all of their 54 corporate units and all of the premium seats. Croke Park, for instance, with a good head start and a more full schedule, hasn't found the market for those commodities to be nearly so rapacious.
Then there is the price. The original project as conceived by Bernard O'Byrne and the Dutch developers, HBG, quickly spiralled out of control over cost. Any hope that this wouldn't happen was based on the Pollyanna syndrome and a refusal to recognise the realities of modern processes. If somebody quotes you £65 million for building a stadium with a retractable roof in 1998, that price is unlikely to stand if you begin building the stadium in late 2001. By the time No Income Park began to see the light at the end of the tunnel, an equity partner was needed.
Funny thing is that, when the FAI was offered a gift of 50 acres of land in Clonburris, near Clondalkin, back in 1998, some of the conditions attached by Dunloe Ewart pointed the way forward. The development at Clonburris was to have no conflict with Government plans and the developers would be equity partners in the affair. In hindsight, there was a lot of wisdom in that offer.
The equity partner (or one thereof) should, of course, have been the Government. The Dunloe Ewart offer recognised that the Government had become the real estate agent doing the house-hunting on behalf of the IRFU. For both organisations, a co-tenancy made the most sense.
It's no time for gloating, however. The loss of the coaching facilities which were to have come with No Income Park should be made up for immediately by the Government, and the generosity shouldn't end there.
If No Income Park fades into the dim and distant this week, there should be a welcome into the parlour for the FAI down at the Taoiseach's office. There should be grown-up discussions, not just about the living arrangements in the BertieBowl, but about what commitments Mr Sepp Blatter (a vocal cheerleader for No Income Park) is prepared to make to Irish soccer in terms of lending his support for the place as a venue for the odd Euro final. We should know, too, whether he will lobby for Irish inclusion as a franchise in any European superleague.
If we are to spend so much public money on helping out the greatest professional sport on earth, we need to know if we are to be treated as a backwater or as real players.
More, if we are to spend so much money on the BertieBowl and its baubles, we should spend the same again every few years on public policy ventures in municipal sport, the point being not merely to win medals and get the tricolour run up the flagpole, but to develop a healthy and non-sedentary citizenry.
The demise of No Income Park probably means that the BertieBowl shall rise. So be it; but it should rise in a different, more central location and the meanness of spirit which has informed its inception had best be exorcised.
