CHAIRMAN PAT McDaid and three other directors of Derry City resigned last night in a move aimed at paving the way for a takeover of the club by a group of local businessmen and negotiations regarding its readmission to the league for next season.

One director, vice chairman, Stephen McCarron, who is believed to have invested substantial amounts of his own money in the club, will remain.

The move had been expected from early in the day and pressure mounted on the board members when it became clear that the club’s players were blaming them for all of the financial irregularities that led to City’s expulsion from the league on Saturday while claiming to be entirely innocent of any wrongdoing themselves.

The players issued a statement last night following a meeting between about half the squad and representatives of the PFAI and FAI officials in Abbotstown.

The players insisted they had been unaware of what was going on in relation to their contracts and that they had effectively been duped into signing second contracts. They had, they said, simply believed the ones containing the higher earnings figures had been the ones lodged with the league.

“The position is,” the statement read, “that at the beginning of the contract period, each player was presented with a document on Derry City headed paper which contained income amounts which we each individually agreed with the club.

“With only one exception, no player knowingly signed a second document. It now appears that, what the club had misrepresented to us as a blank registration form containing no figures, terms or conditions was, in fact, a second document upon which different figures were subsequently entered and lodged with the league.

“The full terms of this contract were never made available to the players and we fully believed that the wages which we were being paid were disclosed to the league in accordance with normal practice.”

The FAI quickly made it clear in a statement of its own, that it is accepting the version of events put forward by the players and looking now to move on with talks about the club’s readmission to the league, most likely into the first division. “As of today, the FAI has accepted these players’ assurances that they were not personally aware of any financial irregularities at the club,” it said. “The FAI also recognises the difficulties that have been created by the club in not paying players for the last eight/nine weeks at Derry City FC, and the impact that has on each player and his immediate family.

“The FAI confirms that it intends to send a delegation to Derry on Thursday, with a view to beginning the process of returning the club to stability, now that the Club Chairman has accepted his untenable position.”

McDaid expressed regret at having to go but said that it was for the good of the club because his relationship with John Delaney had passed the point of no return. “Respectfully,” he said “this is perhaps the only issue on which Mr Delaney and I can agree.”

The latest developments come a day after the directors at Kildare County confirmed that the club would go into voluntary liquidation and hours after Richard Sadlier resigned as chief executive of St Patrick’s Athletic.