Fran Rooney is expected to sign his contract with the FAI next week after he and the officers of the organisation reached an agreement on his terms of employment at a long, but it was reported afterwards, constructive series of meetings at Citywest last night.

Rooney met with the association's five officers for two and half hours before all six men moved for a four-hour meeting with the Board of Management. At the start of the board meeting, however, it was stated that an agreement had been reached and that both sides were happy that Rooney's position in Merrion Square would be formalised over the course of next week.

Details of the agreement reached were not revealed to board members but there was a prolonged discussion over how yet another dispute amongst the association's hierarchy had been allowed to reach crisis point and how such a situation might be avoided in the future.

League chairman Brendan Dillon would say only that "a lot of progress has been made," as he left the meeting last night. Several other prominent board members echoed the sentiment and one explained that there had been a good deal of discussion on how the chief executive and officers would work together in future.

"Obviously it's unfortunate that this has all happened," he said, "but in a sense what we were talking about tonight is the nuts and bolts of Genesis.

"The bad publicity of the last week has been another setback for the association and there were quite a few hard questions asked about how that had been allowed to happen but I think it is something positive that once again we're coming out of a meeting like this feeling that something has been achieved."

Last to emerge from the meeting were Rooney and FAI president Milo Corcoran, who both insisted they were happy with the way the evening's discussions had gone.

"It's all been agreed," said Rooney in relation to the contract, although he added, slightly ominously, "we just have to run it past the lawyers and we expect to have it signed by the e.g.m. (where the rule changes relating to the Genesis report are due to be voted upon) on Friday week.

"It's been a good night," he said. "We've had a lot of honest discussions and we've made a lot of progress and the main thing now is that everybody wants to move forward together.

"We've agreed that we won't discuss the detail of the issues raised this evening, in every organisation you get issues between people from time to time and we're not going to talk publicly about contracts."

Corcoran said that he too was happy with the way things had turned out. "There have been some problems," he remarked, "but there has been a commitment from each and every one of the officers that we will work with Fran."

Last night's events followed another difficult week for the association as newspaper reports regarding the organisation's internal divisions prompted a flurry of jostling for position.

Though the initial leaks centred on the differences between Rooney and four of the association's officers over his request that, in addition to a €250,000 basic salary, he receive performance-related bonuses of 75 per cent or more of his wages, five per cent of any commercial revenues he might raise above €5 million and substantially greater pension contributions than had originally been offered, both sides had insisted that there were far greater issues at stake.

Rooney's supporters maintained that opposition to the new man was born out of a desire to resist the wind of change. Fahy was portrayed as being reluctant to see the full recommendation of the Genesis report implemented. Much was also made of the fact that the Honorary Secretary would benefit if Rooney was to depart as he would stand in for as long as a vacancy might exist as he did last year when Brendan Menton departed.

The motives of Dillon, a member of the committee established to oversee the introduction of the Genesis-inspired changes, were less clearly addressed. Critics dismissed the allegations as an attempt to shift the focus of the debate away from Rooney, whose management style, in addition to his financial demands, has apparently become a significant source of tension within the FAI.