SOCCER/FAI dispute: Solicitors acting for the FAI's honorary secretary, Kevin Fahy, informed the association yesterday that they believe the organisation's board will be acting improperly if it considers a move by Milo Corcoran to have their client removed from his post at its meeting this afternoon in Merrion Square.

Fahy will not now attend the meeting and his legal representatives have argued in their communication with the organisation that the attempt to remove their client is flawed. They claim under the organisation's memorandum of association, which takes precedence over the articles being cited by his critics, only the association's council, which has more than 50 members, can curtail the term of office of either the secretary or treasurer.

Even then the council, they maintain, can only legally do so if the meeting in question is called for the purpose by a sizeable portion of the council's members and two-thirds of its members then vote for the officer's dismissal.

When asked last night for his views on the situation Fahy said he would await today's developments before deciding how to proceed but, he said: "I would not rule out legal action if I feel that is required to remedy the situation."

The letter from his solicitors to the association comes in the wake of one sent by the association's secretary himself to Corcoran on Tuesday and widely distributed to council members.

In it Fahy vehemently denies he has acted in any way that might justify the action being taken against him. He dismisses the claim that the quality of his minute-taking has become a significant problem, alleges that all of the current problems arose in the immediate aftermath of his having sought answers to what are viewed by other senior figures within the association as unwelcome questions, and contrasts his treatment with that of other key figures within the organisation.

Most notably Fahy raises the issue of FAI treasurer John Delaney's role in the agreement with Mick McCarthy's agent, Liam Gaskin, during the last World Cup that McCarthy be given a bonus of Stg£100,000 and he says there was a suggestion by the CEO, Fran Rooney, at a meeting earlier this year that a claim against the organisation by its former general secretary Brendan Menton had been settled when it is still outstanding.

More generally Fahy claims Corcoran's actions are unconnected with the quality of his work but are motivated instead by the fact he has become troublesome by doggedly pursuing answers in relation to the association's finances and particular aspects of the way the issue of club licensing was handled.

"There is no wish for transparency in the FAI and any view that does not accord with that of the CEO or the honorary treasurer is treated as something like treason," he wrote.

Fahy is accused of being resistant to change and an obstacle in the decision-making process. His pursuit of queries in relation to the association's finances have, it is claimed, helped to generate unhelpful publicity for the organisation. In short, it seems, there is a body of opinion, built around several of the association's key leading figures, that Fahy should go because he is simply not what might be described as "a team player" and that his continued involvement at such a high level would be counterproductive.

On almost every specific of the case against him, however, there is disagreement between the two camps. On one particular instance, those who criticise Fahy for questioning the finances of the organisation and voting against its accounts recently claim he cancelled a meeting with the association's financial accountant, Peter Buckley, at which he was to be provided with the answers he sought.

Fahy denies this, saying he was merely offered a date for a meeting on June 17th and, having refused it on the basis he would be away on holidays, could not obtain another date until the middle of this month, after this weekend's a.g.m. in Derry.

That meeting may yet be disrupted by this dispute. Those intent on having him sacked maintain that, having taken legal action themselves, they are acting within their powers to bring his case before today's meeting of the board where, it is generally accepted, the board would comfortably have the numbers required to secure the result they desire.

The suggestion is they will press on, after which, not for the first time with the FAI, the two sides may well end up meeting in the sort of forum where it can be decided just whose legal advice was the better in the first place.