The Saints celebrations at the final whistle were short lived however as the news quickly spread that an FAI committee had met during the bloody game and rejected the submission of evidence from Saint Pats legal representatives in relation to the registration of Mbabazi Livingstone. Incredibly these FAI idiots than deducted 15 points from Pats AND fined them 1270 Euro. Two of the people who made this decision were on the committee that decided NOT to deduct points from the club for the Paul Marney situation! What a TOTAL farce! Where is the consistency in all this rubbish?

One school of thought is that Pats should leave it be for the good of the game in general. Supporters of this view believe that we should try and win all our remaining games and prove to the country that we are THE best team on the pitch and leave Shelbourne to celebrate their sham and fake title "win".

The other view is that we have been made the scapegoats for the entire shoddiness which surrounds the running of the league at all clubs. Ollie Byrne was tipped off by an insider and his motives are quite frankly pathetic and childish. He deserves the universal hatred he has brought down on his own head. He is a bitter and pathetic individual. Certainly it will be a disaster if a team on less points than St Pats get to represent Ireland in Europe. Many will not be able to sit back and let this happen and whether Pats will fight this by appeal and possible court action is the question that everyone is asking.

We all have our views on this controversial and frankly boring off the field nightmare but here are my personal thoughts on this sorry mess, I do not claim that they represent the views of anyone at Independent Saints or in the league but its worth stating a few facts from the point of view of one extremely pissed off fan:

1. Pats officials started this mess when they failed to carry out a routine office task. They have let down our fans and our players and they should NOT make it worse with mud slinging matches with other clubs in the media.

2. The Eircom League compounded the error to farcical proportions as it is now obvious to all that they have in fact NO system in place to process these registration forms or EVEN to look at these bloody pieces of paper.

3. If they admit that they do not process the forms in any way than what are the forms used for? Are they simply to be locked away in an archive and used to beat the head of rivals that fall out a la Ollie's "inspection" of Pats forms. If that's the case well than they serve no sporting purpose whatsoever.

4. How can Michael Hyland preside over an organisation as Chairman and Chief Executive that awards an Eircom League Player of the Month to a player who it KNOWS is not entitled to play for that club under its own league rules? Will this person finally account for his actions?

5. How can the League fine Pats over Marney and than deduct points for the same offence with Babaz months after they KNEW of the registration error?

6. No team or fans should celebrate winning the league due to an administrative error by Pats. Its not what football is about.

7. No one can tell me or any football fan that Babaz and Marney were not obvious Pats players. To spout the rules are rules bull is to ignore the obvious circumstances of these cases. They are not and never will be what can be termed "bangers". Pats broke the rules but they did not "cheat" or seek to gain an unfair advantage.

8. This season the Eircom league has produced some great games, some big crowds and some incredible goals from many very good players, reactionary headlines like those in the Herald calling for the league to be scrapped this season are an insult to the many people associated with Irish football. These headlines and stories are beneath contempt. People like Paul Hyland are a disgrace to sports journalism and their insults to an entire league of good sports people will not be forgotten easily.

9. The Pats team HAVE done us proud. We are a part time club with not even half the resources of the full time set ups at Bohs and Shels, yet this year we have beaten them both and are within 3 games of being the top team in Ireland, albeit with 15 points taken from us due to our poor office administration. AS FANS WE HAVE TO SALUTE THE PERFORMANCE OF THE PLAYERS, THEY HAVE BEEN MAGIFICENT AND IF THEY WIN THEIR REMAINING CAMES WILL BE THE REAL CHAMPIONS OF IRELAND.

10. Finally there are NO winners in all this and the time has come for the backroom staffs at Pats and Shels to stop the childish disputes and name calling that has destroyed the image of our league.