Saints out as internal rows leave sour taste

A RAINBOW appeared near Tallaght Stadium prior to kick-off last night.

But there was to be no hope of a happy ending to one of the saddest weeks in the 83-year history of St Patrick’s Athletic as they duly bowed out of the Europa League.

A dispute with players who had threatened earlier in the day to boycott the match was resolved just hours before kick-off. But morale was shot and an early injury to playmaker Stephen Bradley, and Karpaty taking the lead on the night minutes later, ended the tie as a contest.

That came on 22 minutes when Bradley, still hobbling from his knock, was unable to track back as Karpaty carved open the Saints, resulting in Sergei Zenjov curling a delightful shot past keeper Gary Rogers and into the far right corner of his net.

St Pat’s didn’t lie down and early second half pressure brought its reward with an equaliser on the night. Ian Daly’s skill put the ball back into the Karpaty box following a corner and Evan McMillan turned to fire past keeper Andriy Tlumak.

It offered a sliver of hope, but any revival was ended when Karpaty scored the goal of the night on 64 minutes.

In a clinical counter, Karpaty broke and, after a series of passes, Ukrainian international Igor Khudobyak put a dipping shot past Rogers.

Igor Oshchypko added a third on 83 minutes scooping home the rebound after Derek Pender cleared a shot from Andriy Tkachuk off the line.

Following mediation from the FAI, St Pat’s players settled their bonus/loss of earnings dispute with the club in mid-afternoon.

The players had issued a statement yesterday morning saying that they would not play the match as an offer from the club did not meet their expectations.

“Following receipt of a fax from the owners of St Patrick’s Athletic FC early this morning, we have considered its contents carefully. The faxed offer is the same offer that we rejected last ((Wednesday) night in our meeting with the club. Having discussed it at length, we are unanimous that the offer does not meet our minimum requirements,” the players said through their union, the PFAI.

“It is, therefore, with huge regret that we must inform you that we will not be participating in the fixture this evening.”

The implications of a player boycott would have proved disastrous for the club by way of UEFA sanctions, threatening its very future.

They would have forfeited the prize money of €270,000 for the three rounds they’ve played in Europe this season and incurred a €10,000 fine. But they would have also been liable for Karpaty Lviv’s travel expenses and those of the six match officials. A four-match European ban could also have been imposed by UEFA. In addition to the club’s own travel expenses already incurred from their three away trips, that would have amounted to a gross loss approaching €500,000.

Thankfully, following mediation from the FAI sense prevailed and a deal was struck at the eleventh hour.

The issue was complicated by the fact that St Patrick’s were parachuted into the Europa League to replace defunct Sporting Fingal, by which time most of their players’ contracts had been signed without any reference to potential European bonuses.

“Following discussions between our representative Stephen McGuinness of the PFAI, Fran Gavin of the FAI, and a club official, we can confirm that we have reached an agreement (yesterday) afternoon with the club in relation to our requests,” a second statement from the players read following agreement.

“We never expected this matter to go as far as it did, and we would like to thank our club’s fans for their support during this time,” the players added.

ST PAT’S: ST Rogers; Pender, E. McMillan (Kenna, 69), Shortall, Bermingham; Kavanagh, McFaul, Mulcahy, Bradley (Daly 23), Doyle (North 61); D. McMillan.

ST KARPATY LVIV: ST Tlumak; Fedetskiy, Milosevic, Gomez, Oshchypko; Kopolovets (Voronkov, 55), Tkachuk, Martynnyuk, Zenjov (Pacheco 68); Lucas (Cristobal 76), Khudobyuk.

Referee: Ovidiu Hategan (Romania).