The Eircom League yesterday rejected claims by St Patrick's Athletic that almost all of the country's 21 other senior clubs had committed serious errors when registering players and the problems involved were so grave that the rules are effectively unenforceable.

After the situation was discussed on Monday night, at a meeting of club representatives, a statement was issued yesterday morning in which the league stated there were "no serious irregularities" in the registrations of any players connected with other clubs. It conceded only that there were "minor errors" in some cases but these would not affect the validity of the registrations concerned.

It was confirmed, meanwhile, that the league trophy would not be presented to Shelbourne until all of the avenues of appeal, open to St Patrick's, have been exhausted. The club still has until May 6th to seek arbitration on the dispute which centres on the decision to deduct 15 points from their total for the season.