Cork City could yet have Colin Healy and Gareth Farrelly available for Friday night's Ford- sponsored FAI Cup game with Shelbourne if the Court of Arbitration for Sport finds in their favour at a hearing in Lausanne today.
With the backing of England's Professional Footballers' Association, to which both men belonged prior to signing for City, the club have pursued the case and Damien Richardson hopes to include the pair in the squad that travels to Dublin even if they don't see much action for a few weeks yet.
Neither has been able to play since moving back to Ireland because of Fifa regulations aimed at preventing players from featuring for more than two clubs during one season. The wording of the rule in question is based on a winter season and city's legal representatives will argue this morning that it unfairly penalises players who wish to move between leagues played at different times of the year.
"It's January since Gareth played and seven months since Colin kicked a ball in anger so the reality is that both need at least six weeks before they would be really match fit," said Richardson while en route to Switzerland yesterday.
"Given that they will be free to play for us from the start of July anyway, this doesn't make that much difference at this stage, but it would still be a bonus to bring them to Dublin and Iceland and it's certainly a very worthwhile exercise from the point of view of bringing this sorry situation to an end and establishing a precedent that might benefit others. To prevent two talented craftsmen from plying their trade seems to go against everything Fifa should stand for and we hope the court will share that view."
The potential for the case to set a precedent, one that would almost certainly result in Fifa having to alter their statutes, is at the heart of the PFA's decision to provide financial and moral support.
The case will be heard by three arbiters, one each from Norway, South Africa and Italy. Both sides will be represented, and will have around half an hour to make their points after which the submissions will be reviewed and a decision made. It is expected the outcome will be made known shortly after lunchtime.
"My own feeling is that it's fifth-fifty," says John Kettle, a solicitor specialising in EU and competition law with Dublin firm Mason Hayes and Curran. Also working on the case in Lausanne is another of the firm's solicitors, Niamh Farrelly, a sister of Gareth.
"There's a huge amount of logic to what we will be saying," says Kettle. "The case involves players playing for different clubs in different competitions in different seasons in different countries, there's no question that anything is being distorted by allowing moves likes the ones involved in this case to proceed.
"What we have to do is make the case for sporting fairness more compelling than Fifa's desire for legal certainty. It's difficult to know how the court will act in the circumstances."
