SOCCER NEWS:NEWLY-APPOINTED chief executive Jim Roddy said yesterday that his job at Bohemians will be to develop the club's structures to the point where they can cope with and sustain the sort of European success that Irish clubs have been targeting in recent years.
The northerner, who left a similar role with Derry City a little over a year ago, actually arrives at the Dublin club as it looks to rein in its spending just a matter of weeks after completing a domestic league and cup double.
The extent of the proposed budget cuts - players were recently asked to take a 30 per cent pay cut - appears to have been scaled back but there is still some uncertainty about the size of the squad manager Pat Fenlon will have to work with next year.
Roddy, though, is upbeat about the job and insists the mood at his first meeting with the players was extremely positive.
"Of course, there are challenges to be faced here but make no mistake about it, Bohemians are not unique. There are horror stories all over the game from both North and South but very few of the other clubs are sitting on an asset like Dalymount Park or have the back-up Bohemians have."
The aim now, he says, is to make the most of those assets and his workload, he anticipates, will involve everything from helping to develop grassroots support at local level to securing sponsorships and liaising with Fenlon.
"People talk about how close Irish clubs are to making the big breakthrough in Europe and, on the pitch they are, but behind the scenes the structures simply aren't there at the moment. At Derry, we had a great run in the Uefa Cup a few years back when we played Gretna and Paris Saint Germain and we might have made the group stages but I'll tell you, if the team had won in Paris, Derry City would possibly have imploded because we didn't have the people or the money to carry it off."
Fenlon welcomed the appointment of a man he had worked well with during his own time at the Brandywell and said it would make life a little easier at a club where he had been dealing with often under-pressure volunteers.
"On the most basic level, it will be good to have somebody I can contact at short notice because it can be hard to get hold of people when they are tied up with their day jobs," says Fenlon.
"Also, Jim won't need much time to settle in. It's a new club for him but he knows how a League of Ireland club works which isn't really like any other sort of company or organisation."
The former Shelbourne boss is still not sure who he will be able to keep or bring to the club for next season but admits the financial situation is now such that it is not going to be what he would originally have hoped for.
"I think any manager would want 20 odd players. That's probably not all that realistic at this stage but at the moment we've got 12 and clearly that's not going to get us too far."
Something somewhere around the midway point between the two numbers seems the most likely tally at this stage, although Fenlon is still not sure who he will be able to keep or bring in.
Of the players who are out of contract from last season he is believed to be keen on retaining the likes of Stephen O'Donnell and Liam Burns, while Gary Deegan (currently on trial at Kilmarock) and Mindaugas Kalonas are likely to be approached about new deals if they fail to secure their desired moves abroad.
