I have been very busy lately answering questions on the tradition of full-time professional football. Very few Irish people possess any real understanding of the demands necessary to create and maintain an efficient full-time club.

The first point to remember is that the critical situation at Cork City, still attracting so much attention, has been replicated at clubs all across the globe. It is virtually impossible to run a professional football and make a profit at the end of the year. This is simply because, in any highly unlikely profit-making scernario, the players and supporters of the club concerned expect, as a matter of course, any available money to be spent on improving the team.

In any normal business the name of the game is profit. Shareholders invest in a company hoping or believing that the money invested will be returned accompanied by more money. If the opposite occurs the same investors will usually be asked to invest even more money to stave off a crisis and this requires patience and understanding on the part of these shareholders.

In professional football the shareholders are usually the supporters who pay admission money every week as well as buying club merchandise.

However, patience and understanding in professional sport is usually less reliable than in business because passion and desire dictate rather than common sense. The heart rules the head.

In both business and sport the initial requirements are to have good management and a motivated workforce. Initially the management is the crucial aspect. Good managers create sound organisation and sensible leadership.

Setting the tone

In football the relationship between the man at the top, i.e. Chairman or General Manager, and his man on the ground, the Team Manager, sets the tone of the whole club.

If either, or indeed both, of these men are lacking in ability, understanding or experience then problems will arise, and escalate quickly. At Cork City FC the two men charged with running the club over the past year have enormous experience in the world of business and finance but little in the way of running a full-time professional football club.