ONE OF the effects of yesterday's decision by Sam Hammam to sell his majority shareholding in Wimbledon FC to the Norwegian entrepreneur. Kjell Inge Rokke and Bjorn Rune Gjelsten, will be to terminate the longest-running serial in Irish football.

Another will be to lift the finger of suspicion pointing at various personalities within the Irish game for alleged collusion with the consortium attempting to relocate the English club in Dublin.

It is now all of three years since the first soundings in a carefully orchestrated campaign, designed to influence the FAI, the media and the public, were heard.

At times, the tempo appeared to falter, but the resolve of those promoting the idea remained unshakable. That persistence, in time, sowed the seeds of distrust between those alleged to be abetting the cause of the perceived enemy and those determined to have no truck with it.

As recently as last Saturday, a bemused delegate got to his feet during the FAI's annual general meeting in Athlone, after being approached by an agent said to be acting in the interests of the Dublin consortium, and sought guidance from the top table.

Approaches had been made to people positioned strategically at different levels of the association in the hope that they could mobilise sufficient support to take the campaign over its most difficult hurdle.

Unaware that Hammam who was reported earlier this year to have shaken hands on a deal with a grouping of Dublin business people - was even then entering into an agreement with the Norwegians, the agent was talking big money. In all, the Irish consortium was said to be ready to spend £10 million in return for the goodwill of the FAI and its constituent bodies.

Within days of the original story breaking in 1994, all National League clubs had voiced their opposition to the concept of Premiership football in Dublin.

Yet, in spite of that show of unanimity. the belief was that opposition was less trenchant in some quarters than in others and at least one high-ranking official at Merrion Square was suspected of supporting the campaign.

The case for bringing Premiership football to Dublin was clear. Ireland has a huge fan base and would provide a captive market. Ireland, too, has long been acknowledged as a fertile breeding ground for football talent and the campaign supporters argued that this talent could be channelled exclusively into a successful Wimbledon team.

Games involving the Dublin Dons against such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Leeds or Arsenal, would, they argued, attract the paying public in their tens of thousands.

They also argued that with the advent of an European Super League now perhaps no more than a couple of years away, it was important to give Dublin some hope, of one day getting a seat at the rich man's table:

Ironically, this was the same dream which inspired John Giles and Eamonn Dunphy (now regarded as one of Wimbledon's most vociferous supporters) when they returned from England to front Shamrock Rovers ill fated flirtation with full-time professional soccer in the late 1970s.

To succeed, Wimbledon would have had to convince the FAI and, ultimately, UEFA. that their case warranted the circumvention of the rule limiting jurisdiction of a League, within political boundaries.

True, Derry City have, with UEFA's approval, been allowed to come under the jurisdiction of the FAI. But this, all parties agree, was an exceptional measure taken in response to exceptional circumstances.

A more valid parallel would be one seeking to re-settle one or both of the Scottish giants, Rangers and Celtic, in the Premiership. This, after all, would not transgress the political boundaries rule. But it would still get short shrift from the Scottish FA and from UEFA, as they are anxious not to give FIFA an excuse to demand an all-British international team.

A central plank of the FAI case against the importation of British soccer is that it would reduce the National. League to a subsidiary competition, interfere with the basic structures of the game in this country, and, most pertinently of all, siphon off the money which (barely) sustains the senior clubs here.

The bulk of the Irish football fraternity believe that the campaign sustained by the pro-Wimbledon lobby is driven by commercial considerations and the allure of high dividends rather than the betterment of the Irish game.

It is often said that ownership of a football club is the toy that many moneyed people crave. If the Dublin consortium feels deprived by yesterday's developments, it is perhaps pertinent to remind those involved that at least three National League clubs would welcome their patronage at the earliest opportunity.