These are worrying days for Cork City Football club. While I am in not alone in my concern for the increasing debts and grave uncertainties that have attached themselves to Ireland's premier professional football club, I for one, am doubtful and even skeptical of the manner and time in which these concerns have made their way into the public eye.

During my second managerial stint at Cork City from '05 to '07, we had quite substantial success. In those three seasons Cork City won The eircom League title, the FAI Cup and played in two other Cup Finals while at the same time achieving extremely good results in European competition. Now, I make the above statement not, I assure you, from a position of conceit or misplaced arrogance, but rather to underline my entitlement to speak with some authority on the subject of Cork City.

This entitlement I refer to is also based on something else, something much more fundamental and personal than mere success. It is in my honest opinion, a privelege to be part of CCFC. In saying this I am not wishing in any way to appear sycophantic. Nor am I allowing sentiment to impose itself in any manner of fashion on my train of thought. To work for a great club encourages in a genuine professional a humility as much as it induces confidence. This humility disbars one from acting in an arrogant and unprofessional manner towards the football club. However, if this humility is missing then arrogance usually forces the individual to acts of behaviour that sometimes exceeds belief. Cork City would not be the first club to feel the effects of such behaviour.

It was part of the terms of my contract that there would be finance available to improve the team. Having won the League in '05 I knew two or three players extra players would keep us top for some years to come. Unfortunately in consultation with Chairman Brian Lennox it emerged that the finance was not available. Indeed having already lost Kevin Doyle and Shane Long during that successful 2005 season, I also lost Liam Kearney to Shelbourne for season 2006.

I could have put the gun to Brian's head and demanded he adhere to the terms of my contract but I realised that there was a distinct possibility that money might dry up and payments of players wages may have been disrupted and the club go into crisis. Whilst the team is a managers principle focus, if the club goes bust there is no team and to my mind a proper professional manager must ensure that all the component parts of his club work in unison. I have seen far too many managers put their club in peril by focusing solely on the progression of their own career.

I accept totally that a well-run professional organisation pays its employees a fair salary that is representational of their particular ability. I also accept that players are entitled to negotiate the best terms they can because theirs is a short career. It is also acceptable to me that players play one club off against in order to raise the stakes of those negotiations. What is not acceptable to me, in any way shape or form, is for a manager or the person running the club to cave in to players' demands and pay salaries that will force the club into a financial crisis. This is lazy leadership and a precursor to confusion and eventually disarray. Shelbourne was the classic example of this.