Soccer National League countdown: For his members the season may end with the final whistle of the campaign's last game, but it's just a couple of weeks since Fran Gavin put his file on 2003's Eircom League to bed and with the whole thing about to kick off again he admits that he's looking forward to seeing rather than just talking about football again.

As the sole official of the Professional Footballers' Association of Ireland (PFAI) Gavin, a former player himself who left a family photography business on Dublin's northside in order to become a full-time trade unionist, represents two thirds of the league's 250 to 300 players.

In an industry where even the biggest and best of employers seem to spend as much time in the public spotlight for their financial troubles as for their achievements on the pitch, it's not a role that makes for a quiet life.

Having originally become involved with the organisation while playing with Shamrock Rovers, Gavin has been instrumental in more recent times in securing a link, through the Marine Port and General Workers' Union, with SIPTU and also with securing substantial financial support for the PFAI from the international players' group, FIFPRO. With the backing of both he now runs the union, with the help of former National League employee Sharon Smith, out of an office in what was the FWUI headquarters on Parnell Square in Dublin.

"We spend most of our time going in talking to clubs and players after things have gone wrong, acting as an honest broker and trying to address the anger that players feel when they feel they've honoured their side of a contract but a club has reneged on its."

It irritates him, he says, to hear the often repeated accusation that player greed is the major source of the game's problems here when it is the failure of clubs to meet commitments freely entered into that provide the vast bulk of his day to day workload. "We have members on €50 a week as part-time professionals while the best paid are on, well, not more than €1,500 and that's probably two, three, maybe four players. If a full-time player is on €600 and then they pay their tax, well that's not a huge amount of money, not in Dublin which is one of the most expensive cities in the EU.

"Even then, though, there's no problem if the clubs don't offer that sort of money to players, the problems start when they do offer it and then a few months later turn around and say, 'sorry we haven't got the money to pay you.' Ninety nine per cent of the problems we deal with are the result of clubs breaking contracts."

The licensing scheme, he argues, is an opportunity for much of what has been wrong with the game here to be put right but he remains sceptical about its implementation, believing that most clubs would prefer to drag the standards set out in the regulations down to their level rather than achieving the required improvements.

Financial probity and transparency are amongst the more prominent goals of the UEFA-backed scheme but, he says, a recent survey of his members revealed that, in spite of their legal entitlements, 85 per cent of players did not receive pay slips with their wages last season while similar numbers were not issued with a P60.

"The difference is that players are demanding these things now because with the potential to get tax rebates and other benefits they know how important they are," he says.

"Another problem is that there are players out there with two contracts, one with the league and one with the club (the motivation for this is also tax-related and the document sent to Merrion Square may dramatically underestimate a player's remuneration). How can you expect to properly regulate a league when that sort of thing is still going on?"

One of the ways in which the PFAI has sought to improve matters is the introduction of a standard players' contract, something that exists in every other EU state and something that a succession of FAI and league officials have previously expressed support for prior to resigning their posts for one reason or another.

"The turnover in there since I started working full-time for the union certainly hasn't helped and the jury is still out on Fran Rooney, who has said that he's in favour of quite a few things that we would view as positive, but has yet to really show that he is capable of providing the leadership that is required.

"If you look at the way the game here is run, then it strikes you that the players are the only grouping that don't have any say at all.

"Ultimately we want the same things as the clubs and the officials in Merrion Square, we want a strong league and a healthy game because that's good for our members."