Pat O'Neill, a dynamic personality in Irish agribusiness in modern years, is expected to be named next week as the chairman of the reformed National Sports Council.

Membership of the council, the first with statutory powers, is still being formulated by the Minister for Sport, Jim McDaid, but O'Neill is thought to have replaced Richard Burrows and Tony Hanahoe as the front runner for the influential post.

John Treacy, the former Olympian who chaired the outgoing council, is now likely to be appointed as the chief executive with an annual salary of £50,000 plus.

Controversially, there will be no representation on the new body for the Olympic Council of Ireland. And the FAI will also be excluded from a slimmed down assembly which is expected to conform to gender equality.

O'Neill's appointment will come as a surprise for he has little or no profile in sport, either at national or regional level. He is an avid supporter of Kilkenny hurling, however, and as chief executive of Avonmore Foods, was responsible for that company's sponsorship of the county team.

He is also a keen amateur golfer but in terms of the major international sports, he is very much an unknown quantity. Yet if his sporting background is sketchy, his business acumen is unquestioned. He served as financial executive of An Bord Bainne for eight years before becoming chief executive of Avonmore Foods.

He was one of the prime movers in the merger of Avonmore and Waterford Foods which led to the launch of Glanbia last year and currently serves on the boards of several leading Irish companies. It is the second major Government appointment for the 60-year-old Wexford man who was recently named to head up a special task force on the future of the food industry.

Less surprising will be the choice of Maurice Ahern, a brother of the Taoiseach, to sit on the council. Ahern, newly elected to Dublin Corporation, has given a lifetime of service to athletics and Clonliffe Harriers in particular and was for many years, closely identified with the struggle to save Santry Stadium.

Like his brother, he will have little difficulty in convincing anybody of his passion for sport and in addition to athletics, he is actively involved in golf in the metropolitan area.

Women will have a big input into the new body which in contrast to its predecessors, is likely to be have no more than seven members. Mary Davis, the principal driving force behind the Special Olympics movement, was a valued member of the outgoing council and as such, will now have valid claims for another term of office.

Sinead Behan, a Cork solicitor who, as a juvenile athlete, was capable of finishing in front of Sonia O'Sullivan, is another probable nominee and there are also indications of a place at the table for Helen O'Rourke. A teacher by profession, she resigned her post to become full time secretary of the women's GAA movement and in that capacity, is credited with a major contribution to the growth in interest in the All-Ireland football and camogie championships in recent years.

The FAI may feel aggrieved that similar recognition was not forthcoming for those who have overseen the development of women's football as a major leisure pursuit. The association has been represented on all previous councils but are now in danger of missing out on what will undoubtedly prove a much more effective decision making body.

Rugby, too, is likely to lose the authoritative voice of Syd Miller. There was a body of opinion which suggested that at a time of increased cross-Border co-operation, Ulster would have a voice in the new body and in this context, the names of established athletics personalities like Maeve Kyle and Colin Boreham, were mentioned.

That now seems unlikely but unquestionably, the loudest protests will be coming from the Olympic Council of Ireland who in recent years, were represented by Dermot Sherlock.

Their omission bespeaks the tension which has existed in recent years between successive Ministers for Sport and Pat Hickey, the OCI's ebullient president, who has frequently railed against what he perceives as insufficient State funding for sport.

Hickey was publicly rebuked by the then Minister for Sport, Bernard Allen, in the furore over Sonia O'Sullivan during the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996 and later, was seen to be at variance with Jim McDaid.

As the umbrella organisation for almost 30 disciplines, the OCI will claim, with some justification, perhaps, that their exclusion devalues the new council as an authoritative voice for sport.

The counter argument is that as the main beneficiary of the council's executive powers, it would be inappropriate for the OCI to be part of the decision making process, a line of thought which will, no doubt, provoke a swift response from its members.

The new council, which has been in the making for the better part of nine months, is expected to be announced next Wednesday and will have its first sitting shortly afterwards.