AIRTRICITY LEAGUE:LIMERICK FC appeared to be preparing the ground for a possible legal action against the FAI yesterday when it emerged that the club has appealed the decision to deny it permission to stage a potentially lucrative friendly against Barcelona this summer to the League of Ireland's Disciplinary Control Unit.

The club lodged its appeal yesterday morning, several hours before Barcelona officials confirmed to their Limerick counterparts that they couldn’t, in the circumstances, wait any longer to see if a game might be permitted by the association and it would therefore be going elsewhere.

There is some doubt anyway about whether the body to which the club has appealed could really have any meaningful say on the matter and so the move has all the appearances of a party considering court action going out of its way to ensure that all available remedies were adequately explored before deciding on whether to pursue other available avenues.

Limerick remain confident that other members of the league have been angered by the way the FAI has behaved and they received considerable support at Monday’s meeting of 19 clubs from around the country in Dublin. The anti-association sentiments expressed, however, along with the tone of some reports yesterday, clearly proved too much for some clubs and in a joint statement issued on behalf of the clubs last night, they went out of their way to acknowledge the work done by the FAI to promote the senior league.

At Monday’s meeting, it was stated: “It was accepted that the merger with the FAI has been an overwhelming success and has addressed many difficulties of the clubs and the league in general.

“The sentiments expressed at the meeting were very positive towards continuing with the merger and the clubs acknowledged the positive role that the FAI has played in developing the game at senior level in this country. The outcome of the meeting was that a postal vote would be undertaken to confirm the clubs’ intention to continue with the merger with the FAI.

“As the meeting was breaking up, a representative of Limerick FC addressed the meeting and detailed their current difficulties concerning their proposed friendly with FC Barcelona.

“On listening to Limerick FC’s viewpoint, the meeting agreed to contact the FAI seeking clarification on matters that may preclude a friendly match being sanctioned. At no stage was a formal vote of the clubs undertaken.”

The tone of the statement is remarkable given the views of some club officials on the current situation and the nature of some of the comments at the meeting but, as is clearly suggested by its contents, there is not the remotest prospect in the current climate of the relationship between the two parties being severed with clubs apparently more interested in winning some concessions when the next participation agreement is drawn up.