IT IS surprising to find Louis Kilcoyne clinging on to his presidential reins this morning, though it is still expected that he will voluntarily step down today.

All the indications are that he will preserve some dignity by choosing his own time to go - not when Des Casey and Pat Quigley, the media, or even trusted colleagues tell him - and that this will be before tonight's senior council meeting.

He is his own man, and has a stubborn streak. But Kilcoyne is also a football man through and through. That he would be reluctant to relinquish the presidency of the FAI, which he has worked so hard to obtain, is understandable.

However, Kilcoyne is too shrewd not to know that he faces the ignominy of defeat in the motion of confidence in his presidency at tonight's senior council meeting.

Aside from looking a forlorn and isolated figure these last few days, the real sadness about Kilcoyne's current plight is that he now looks destined to be remembered as the Shamrock Rovers director who sold Glenmalure Park in Milltown and the FAI president who presided over an officer board that resigned en bloc inside three days. He deserves a better epitaph.

True, the Kilcoyne brothers applied cold business rationale in selling the best ground in Ireland (and they had a legal right if not a moral right). What is generally forgotten is that they, and Louis in particular, made Glenmalure Park the best ground in Ireland.

When they bought the ground for a fee in the region of £3,000 from the Cunninghams in 1972, Glenmalure Park had hardly received a lick of paint in decades.

After a season Kilcoyne had the terracing torn down and replaced with a car park, and also gutted the main stand, built two new bars and a social club.

Louis Kilcoyne was a progressive, visionary administrator within Rovers and the FAI, where, as a tour operator, he took them to places they'd never dreamt of going.

The optimism generated by the 1978 Cup final win and fourth place in the league was never quite fulfilled in the Giles years (77-83), during which Rovers were runners up in 1982 and never out of the top six. Jim McLaughlin delivered four leagues and three doubles (84-87) but couldn't deliver the crowds. The Kilcoynes sold Milltown.

It has been said that Louis Kilcoyne was but the footballing figurehead, and that his brothers Paddy and Barton were responsible for that decision, though he must have played a central part in helping them to secure the ground from the Jesuit Order for £160,000 in February 1986, subsequently selling the site to Tyrone based property developers for £925,000 in November 1988.

In any event, Louis Kilcoyne primarily, and Dermot Keely among others, took the flak from KRAM during the abortive season at Tolka Park (87-88). He retreated to the back benches, using his base as Cork City representative for six years to be elected president of the FAI two summers ago when, remarkably, he was nominated by the league clubs.

A great many people retained faith in him, amongst them Dr Tony O'Neill of UCD. He has always retained more contacts than Telecom Eireann, right up to FIFA president Joao Havelange.

He was and to some extent still is a visionary and progressive administrator. An eminently likeable, personable raconteur Louis Kilcoyne retains a certain charm and charisma befitting an association president.

Had the presidency been his during the Milltown days say, or had it coincided with Dr Tony O'Neill's term as general secretary, Kilcoyne would probably have been the best administrator Irish football ever knew.

But, personally, I never felt he had quite the same motivation after Milltown. There have been several examples of, this in the last few, error strewn months.

Had Kilcoyne given his imprimatur to a statement by the interview board backing Mick McCarthy the day after his "gaffe", much of the ensuing brouhaha could have been averted. Similarly, if the day after the Sunday Independent first revealed that an officer had personally met a shortfall arising from ticket proceeds at Italia 90, Kilcoyne had publicly instigated an external, audited inquiry.

Instead, there followed a misleading press conference regarding this matter, followed by Joe Delaney's statement two days afterwards. The situation still might have been saved, but Kilcoyne was in Atlanta on IOC duties, and when he returned Des Casey was in Malta on UEFA business. By the time Kilcoyne could call the officer board together, his fate was irretrievable.

All in all, in time honoured tradition, the FAI seemed to contain too many personal fiefdoms. But as the last few weeks have stunningly demonstrated, it could not go on like this. The current crisis is as much an indictment of the association's archaic modus operandi as that of the officer board's. But the buck has to stop somewhere, and ultimately with the president.

. The former general secretary of the FAI, Sean Connolly, has joined Carr Communications as Senior Consultant and Training Specialist.