KILDARE County will be docked three points in the League Cup for fielding an illegal player in the draw with Athlone Town last Tuesday week.
Manager, Dermot Keely introduced a fit-again Peter Rogers to the fray as a second half substitute in Athlone, unaware that the player, returning to fitness following a hernia operation, had not been registered.
In a move designed to ensure that such an oversight never occurs again, the club has announced that Pat McNally is vacating the position of Commercial Manager to take on the role of General Manager, with responsibility for administration and the new impending licensing agreement.
Applications for the vacant Commercial Manager's position are being accepted at present.
The club was informed by post on Friday morning that it had breached the registration rules. Officials contacted the FAI immediately to declare that they would accept the mandatory punishment.
"We hold our hands up. We're completely at fault and we reassured the FAI that there would be no High Court actions or anything like that", McNally told The Kildare Nationalist
Rogers underwent a knee operation in the close season. He hadn't been able to kick the ball with his strong left foot in the last campaign's concluding games as he pushed himself through the pain barrier in an attempt to get his side into the play-offs.
McNally blamed the "administrational error" on being too familiar with the convalescing player.
"It would never have happened if it was a player we had signed, but it was different with Peter. We hadn't registered him because we wanted to see how he had recovered from the operation. He has been back training for the last six weeks and we just got used to seeing him there."
The one positive from this whole event is that the skilful Rogers appears to have made an excellent recovery and played very well in Athlone.
"In fairness to him, he has worked so hard to get back and we will be registering him as an amateur player now."
This is Keely's second time involved in a registration issue, although this case will not have the same impact as the Paul Marney and Charles 'Mbabzi' Livinston affairs of a few years ago, that saw St. Patrick's Athletic docked points and Keely's Shelbourne go on to claim the Premier Division title.
