Final bow: the Derry City players like Peter Hutton met with the FAI last week to discuss their next move while protesting their innocence

Shortly after Ireland and France left Croke Park's stage last night, the Undertones took to the Nerve Centre's in Derry. Their goal wasn't to stoke the crowd for the World Cup but for something even more important to one of the most fervent soccer fan-bases on the island: the welfare of their club and, to an extent, their community. The purpose of the concert was to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Derry City's brilliant treble in order to raise funds for the club's Development Committee. A night of nostalgia but also renewal. Yet, announced over a month ago, its timing finished up proving quite fitting.


Because this week, it was really the club's illustrious past and extensive support that secured its future. Quite simply, Derry City are too big an institution to be banished to the A Championship or beyond. Even before last Thursday's meeting that looks to have made the Derry name safe, FAI Chief Executive John Delaney hinted towards that direction by admitting he "felt sick" as the initial decision to expel Derry from the League of Ireland was taken and that, once the previous board had resigned, the body was determined to begin "the process of returning the club to stability".


By the end of it, he was beaming about having seen the "road map to put Derry City back into the League of Ireland" as early as next season. The range of figures present at the meeting also illustrated the depth of determination to keep senior soccer in the city. From the FAI, Delaney, League of Ireland director Fran Gavin, Compliance Officer Padraig Smith and Club Licensing Officer Richard Fahy met with club personnel such as Jack McCauley, Martin McDaid and Hugh McDaid, local businessmen like Paul Diamond, a local supporters' trust and even Mayor Paul Fleming. For all that the past pushed the need to save Derry, during the meeting it was made clear by the FAI that a break from it was also essential. There needed to be a new board with a new attitude. Afterwards, Fleming spoke of how "positive" it had gone.


And well he might as Delaney later revealed the results. "We've learned the extent of Derry's debts could be as high as £800,000 [€890,000], therefore the formation of a new company is unlikely to take that debt on board. I feel the preferred option, having spoken to the groups, would be the formation of a new company which would apply for membership of the First Division next season."


Delaney re-asserted this view when talking to the Sunday Tribune on Friday. "Having spoken to the different people, the football people, the local council, the supporters, there was a real good will. They want to play League of Ireland, we want them to play League of Ireland. Now we have a vacancy and if the proper application came in I would say there is a more than decent chance."


However, although Derry City's future has been secured – at least in a scaled-down capacity for the foreseeable future – it has left many observers again agonising over the league's. Or rather, that its past is going to continue to repeat itself. That, having initially expelled Derry from the competition, this is merely another FAI fudge. That, having accrued enormous debts of almost €1m, the club have now been allowed the "easy option" of company liquidation and rebirth – creditors like Dungannon Swifts, who are still owed a signing-on fee for Niall McGinn then left to peer through the wisps of smoke left by Wellvan Enterprises. But, most of all, that this is yet another Groundhog Day for the league. The same issues arising and arising again. The very same sentences even seemingly being reproduced for every piece like this.


Well, partly. To the last issue first as, at the least, the details of Derry's demise are truly unique in the league's long recent history of trouble. This extreme incident required extreme action. Sure, clubs have overestimated budgets and lived ludicrously beyond their means but no-one has operated with such severe irregularities as Derry appeared to. Certainly, rarely has Delaney been so ferocious or forensic in his delivery as when he disclosed the documents the FAI had to RTé's Tony O'Donoghue on Monday. How the money the players were actually receiving didn't match the money presented elsewhere and that they were on dual contracts.


Which raises the question of why the now ex-chairman Pat McDaid was so vociferous in his denials earlier this week. Some point to the pressure to protect the club from elsewhere, others rationalise that the realisation he and his board had been responsible for effectively having Derry kicked out of the league was simply too much to take. His resignation on Tuesday was seen as an admission of sorts to go with the one the FAI claimed McDaid gave in private the previous Wednesday. And, once Delaney had presented the FAI's facts so damningly, the groundswell of support that stayed behind the old regime began to drift. By Friday night on the Derry Journal website, 64 per cent of voters agreed that the club should have been expelled from the league. Now, Delaney regrets that it required such a strong hand to be played to convince them, but felt it was necessary.


"The events earlier in the week were disappointing because on the Wednesday [4 November] we had made a decision but the reaction to Saturday made it a more difficult week than it should have been. If you look at it, we know there were two sets of contracts up there. We have a large number of them now. Once the evidence was portrayed publicly which I didn't want to do but felt I had to – I didn't want this to go on for a number of weeks, especially with the division play-off matches – it was made clear to the public. Particularly to the people of Derry. The association had no agenda, why would we do it unless there was a reason? And bringing it all out on Monday I think brought a very quick finish. It's a pity we had to go to the extravagant measures of what we did to prove it."


As to Derry's eventual fate, Delaney rejects the accusations of an FAI fudge.


"There still are huge punishments here. They've been put out of football. The new company that's put together would want to be one that has credible people and is run credibly on a financial basis. If they do get into the First Division, it takes a year to get out and if they do get to Europe, there's a three-year ban. So there are a range of pretty tough sanctions there, no doubt about it. And they have to put an application in that is of a professional enough standard. I think they've taken a pretty tough line."


And that they've been allowed merely walk away from a huge debt?


"Well the responsibility is on Wellvan but I would have impressed upon the people that from whatever structure they go with that certain debts, particularly within the football family to Dungannon Swifts, Linfield, the players should be addressed. Some of the players will want to be released from the club but others who are local may want to stay and could be accommodated – it's up to them now."


Certainly, there will be no ambiguity about their contracts this time. All the details of headed paper and blank forms, however, also brought to mind the darker days of five years ago when there were no standard contracts in the league and Shelbourne players were looking to reclaim tax owed to them as sportsmen only to find out it had never been declared. Indeed, the introduction of standard contracts was one of the PFAI and Gavin's landmark moves in attempting to drag the league towards some form of modernity.


It's why, although the details are truly unique, Derry's overall situation is so dispiritingly familiar. They seemingly didn't learn the lesson of going into administration before. By running up such and refusing to acknowledge the spirit of the 65 per cent rule – but certainly acknowledging its inhibitions by outright evading them – the old Derry board are guilty of refusing to accept the required new realities of League of Ireland football. Just as Tom Coughlan at Cork was, if not to the level of Derry. Such seismic stories also paint a bleaker picture of the league since clubs that encountered chaos last year – Galway, Sligo – enjoyed calmer times this. Even Bohemians, who played an extremely dangerous game in effectively staking their financial future on delivering the title, look set to be secure. And hopefully to reassess.


After such a week the hope is the league – like Derry – can again look to a more well-founded future. One finally worth the paper it's written on.