National League: National League officials followed their counterparts in Scotland and Northern Ireland over the weekend when they decided at the organisation's a.g.m. in Dublin to abandon their controversial, three-year experiment with a 10-team premier division and raise numbers again in time for the start of the 2005 campaign.

Even before the matter was voted upon, however, there were widespread suggestions that the merger with the FAI currently being negotiated between representatives of the two organisations will throw up another, partly regionalised format for 2006.

It's not so long ago these clubs seemed incapable of attending their annual get-together even once without tinkering in some fundamental way with the structures of their league, and to judge by Saturday they've caught the bug again.

That the eircom League's premier division will revert to 12 teams next year is no great surprise, for the current structure needed a two-thirds majority if it was to be retained, and with just about everyone in the first division seeing the last two years as a step backwards it never had a chance of achieving that sort of support.

In the end, just eight clubs, amongst them Shelbourne, Bohemians and Cork City, voted to retain the 10-team premier division, and with no alternatives on the table the meeting then turned its attention to devising the precise method by which the higher number would be restored.

In the end it was agreed that three clubs would be promoted this year with just one going down. There will be no play-offs, as it was decided that anything which might result in the sixth-placed club in this year's first division being promoted at the end of the season was, when it comes to the licensing situation, simply asking for trouble.

Afterwards, FAI chief executive Fran Rooney insisted the target is to implement all aspects of the licensing scheme for next season, but, it was conceded, much will depend on how many clubs achieve "A" licences by this time next year.

The understanding is that if 10 clubs achieve the higher level (Derry City are the only one to do so to date), then they will make up the premier division regardless of where they finish in the league this year.

If more than that reach the A standard, then the 10 highest placed sides between the two divisions with the required documentation will make up the top flight for 2005. If the number, as some predicted on Saturday, falls short of double figures we will almost certainly be in for a repeat of the sort of wrangling that has blighted the build-up to this weekend's league kick-off.

The newly-elected league chairman, Declan O'Luanaigh, expressed confidence after Saturday's meeting, however, that the necessary numbers would meet the required standards well before the end of the current campaign and that next year's premier division will be made up entirely of teams that have earned their place there on the field of play.

"For many of them it is heartbreaking to have missed out first time around, because they came so close," he said. "From what I've seen and from talking to representatives of the clubs, I don't see it as a problem. They all want their A licence, they all want to be eligible to play in Europe and they've all made huge progress to date, so I'm sure it will sort itself out over the coming months."

Earlier in the day O'Luanaigh had been elected rather comfortably to the position of league chairman, with the former Dublin City official beating Galway's John Byrne by 14 votes to eight.

The meeting, meanwhile, approved a rule change aimed at putting an end to the problems that have developed over the past couple of seasons between clubs with senior or under-21 internationals on their books and the FAI.

The growing number of under-21 internationals, in particular, playing in the league has caused tensions as clubs sought to have games postponed when what were often amongst their best players were taken away from them by Don Givens. Previously three players had to be absent in order for a club to be entitled to a postponement, but for the coming season the number will drop to just one.