Pats U-turn Means Europa League Tie WILL Go Ahead As Planned

In quite a dramatic u-turn St Patrick’s Athletic Europa League tie against Karpaty WILL go ahead after the Football Association of Ireland stepped into a dispute between club owners and players.

At mid-day today the players of St Pats decided they were going to pull out of tonight’s tie as the clubs owners had not co operated with players problems with loss of earnings through European bonuses.

The repercussions on the Richmond Park club for not fulfilling the fixture would have been potentially catastrophic as the club would have lost their competition prize money and face a fine and a ban from UEFA.

But this afternoon a PFAI press release confirmed that an agreement has been reached where the players will play tonight against Karpaty.

“Following discussions between our representative Stephen McGuinness of the PFAI, Fran Gavin of the FAI, and a club official,” the statement reads, “we can confirm that we have reached an agreement this afternoon with the club in relation to our requests.”

It goes on, stating that the players are ready for tonight’s match. “We never expected this matter to go as far as it did, and we would like to thank our club’s fans for their support during this time. We have never lost focus on tonight’s game and are very much looking forward to this evening’s encounter with FC Karpaty Lviv

Pats will now take to the pitch in Tallaght tonight looking to overturn a 2-0 deficit from the first leg, victory tonight will see them join Shamrock Rovers in the next round.

Daniel "Pitchside" Pitcher Twitter: @DanFM104Sport About: Dan "Pitchside" Pitcher provides insight and commentary as the chief soccer and rugby correspondent for Sportspeak.