Emmet Malone/On Soccer: Having "left the door open" for Eamonn Collins to return to his job at St Patrick's Athletic over the weekend, club chairman Andy O'Callaghan pretty much conceded yesterday he would be appointing a new man to the post over the next couple of weeks.

After he and Collins spoke at length yesterday, O'Callaghan admitted the prospect of Collins reversing his decision to leave is now extremely remote, although it is still hoped he will be back working with the Inchicore side in another capacity fairly soon.

For a man whose recent meeting with Roddy Collins was said to have sparked last week's decision by Eamonn Collins to leave, O'Callaghan sounded genuinely saddened yesterday by the turn of events. The Dubliner maintains his discussions with the former Bohemians boss had been about the possibility of raising money rather than replacing the manager but he accepts Eamonn Collins believed he had lost the chairman's confidence in recent weeks and he regrets, he says, his inability to persuade him otherwise.

In his own comments to the media after announcing his departure last week, Collins made little enough effort to disguise his weariness with the financial constraints imposed upon him over the last year or so. The need to cut day-to-day expenditure at the club and, in particular, to limit spending during the close season meant not only pruning the once famously outsized squad at Richmond Park but also removing the sort of players - usually the better ones - who had to be paid all year round under the terms of their contracts.

Capturing Clive Delaney late last season was seen as something of a coup for the Inchicore side but his subsequent sale to Derry City was the clearest signal of the close season that Collins would not be able to compete at the top end of the local market. While the club works hard to pay off a substantial debt, what might be described as the "fundamentals" at Richmond Park actually appear to be quite strong. The club controls its own ground and owns the house on Emmet Road in which it is based. Within Merrion Square it is regarded as having been the most effective of the Dublin clubs at self-promotion and forging community links.

As part of that process it has, in a few short years, developed a hugely successful youth section. Currently chaired by Bobby Murray, it, crucially, is run without the need for any subvention from the senior club.

That, of course, is probably just as well for O'Callaghan makes little secret of how difficult it is to balance the books at the National League end of the outfit. In rough terms, he says, the club is taking in about 15,000 a week, slightly over half of that being gate receipts. Running the club costs around 20,000 and making up the shortfall is a constant struggle.

Player costs account for around 75 per cent of turnover and while O'Callaghan is adamant the players are not overpaid he recognises the 250,000 or so per annum the club is left with to spend on every other aspect of the business, including the financing of much-needed capital expenditure on the stadium, isn't nearly enough.

A couple of million euro could make a huge difference, he reckons, but though he is a partner in a major accountancy firm and is well connected enough in the financial world to have had hearings from quite a few people who, he says, "wouldn't miss a million or two", there have been no significant takers to date.

He remains confident this will change over the next few months but admits the Rosenborg model he is selling is too far short of being a guaranteed thing for most of the potential investors he has approached.

"The problem is," he says, "that barring a major breakthrough in Europe success doesn't generate revenue in this country. We did very well for a few seasons and had very little to show for it afterwards, while Shelbourne won the league last year and couldn't pay the wages the following week."

One significant problem for the club is the failure of summer football to deliver a significant jump in attendances. This season crowds are estimated to have increased by around 15 per cent, with roughly 15,000 attending league games each week compared with around 13,000 during the same period last year. The hope is that better promotion will sustain the improvement through the summer months but the numbers are still tiny by comparison with either the GAA or the bigger English sides.

When it comes to the English competition, just about every Premiership outfit may be heavily in debt but their ability to generate cash is still mind-boggling by Irish standards. Tottenham, for example, have just had a miserable season and have, on the face of it, nothing to play for against Wolves next Saturday. A win at Molineux, though, combined with a couple of unfavourable results for Blackburn and Portsmouth would lift the White Hart Lane side two places in the Premiership table and yield an additional 1.5 million in prize-money - a year's turnover plus the club's entire debts for St Patrick's Athletic.

How they must all wish life was that simple up on Emmet Road.