SOCCER: The collapse last week of the proposed takeover of Shamrock Rovers by a couple of English businessmen may be bad news both for that club and the league, but Rovers, a club that has endured two decades of hard times during which it has shown both a knack for survival and a gift for self-destruction, is a peculiar case by the standards of the local game.
Operating in a particularly crowded Dublin market, in which it is no longer even close to being the brand leader, the club has been trading on its past for some time now. And if it weren't for the devotion of loyal fans, it would be easy to believe by now that the club simply doesn't have a future.
More alarming, from the point of view of those working to move the senior game here forward, are the troubles currently being encountered by a club like Waterford United, whose 4-2 defeat by Shelbourne on Friday day marked another setback in what was already shaping up to be a truly miserable season.
For the team, managed for the moment by Giles Cheevers, this was a seventh league outing without a win, which has left the club in free fall.
In the circumstances the performance on Friday wasn't that bad and it is quite possible to see the players steadying things with a couple of results and then going on to stay just clear of relegation.
What is harder to imagine just now, however, is the problems affecting the club off the field being resolved in the immediate future for, with losses running at around €7,000 a week and the remaining two directors having signalled their desire to depart, United need a knight in shining armour every bit as much as Rovers do.
There was considerable hype in the build-up to Friday's game, with repeated appeals to disaffected fans to come along and support the club in its hour of need. Just as Rovers found earlier in the season when they tried the same approach, it was apparent on the night that there is a growing case of donor fatigue among followers of the league's more troubled clubs. And the gate receipts of around €7,000 didn't even come close to meeting the costs of around €10,000 for last week, never mind those for the current one, when there is no home game.
On the face of it, the club still has considerable potential but speaking after the Shelbourne game one of the remaining directors, Martin Colbert, made no attempt to hide the seriousness of the club's plight.
An agm is scheduled for late July and Colbert conceded that if the club manages to keep paying the wages until then it would not do so for long afterwards unless there is a serious reorganisation, some major cost-cutting and improved backing from supporters as well as the business community.
The hope is that a trust fund can be established to channel money from supporters of the game in the city into United and grassroots development work, but Colbert admits a good deal of work needs to be done before anything like the money required could be generated.
In the meantime the debts, currently modest other than a €150,000 long-term loan guaranteed by former directors of the club and ultimately underwritten by the FAI, will be mounting and the prospects of avoiding the sort of financial collapse experienced at so many other clubs in recent years will be severely diminished.
Matters will improve if a few players can be moved on when the transfer window opens on Friday but the loss of Daryl Murphy has already taken its toll on the team's performances, while Alan Reynolds's departure is a further blow. And with the player-manager having failed to even fill the five seats on the bench for the game at Finn Harps, there is clearly no room for manoeuvre in relation to the first-team squad.
The future, in short, looks bleak and the club's troubles will cast a shadow this weekend over the FAI agm, which takes place in the city and where there will be no shortage of delegates from clubs whose books make similarly grim reading.
