Eircom is not quitting its sponsorship of the League of Ireland this year, in spite of widely reported claims to the contrary. The company has firmly denied it is about to end their sponsorship of the Eircom League and called reports to that effect "calculated''.

"These reports began to appear at the time of the FAI AGM in July, which was no coincidence," said a spokesman.

"We are currently in discussion with the FAI on sponsorship of both the Eircom League and the national team," he said. It had been widely printed and broadcast that Eircom would drop the league sponsorship but retain the relationship with the national team at the end of the season, but that had never been decided.

Even last week some senior FAI executives seemed to be under the impression Eircom's sponsorship of the league was ending. FAI's marketing director Noel Mooney discussed with this newspaper the "the new sponsorship portfolio to be decided at the end of the season" and the "huge number of companies approaching us on sponsoring the league".

Eircom has sponsored the national soccer team and the domestic league since 2000, spending around €23m in total. It said a new sponsorship deal would again involve a seven-figure sum.

Meanwhile the financial woes of the Eircom League continue, with Cork City struggling to avoid going into receivership and Cobh Ramblers requesting loans from its players to pay its debts.