As the European heads of state get together in Nice this week for one of their regular summits, the world of football will anxiously wait for any early indications of their attitude towards the battle currently being fought out within the game.

Neither UEFA nor FIFA have had much cause to celebrate the involvement of the lawmakers in their games over the past decade, but this week they will be hoping that six months of intensive lobbying will be rewarded with some form of recognition of the sport's "special status" when it comes to matters of employment.

Back in Dublin, representatives of the Professional Footballers' Association of Ireland will be hoping the bureaucrats' appeals have fallen on deaf ears.

The association's secretary, Fran Gavin, sounds a little perplexed by some of the arguments favouring the granting of the coveted special status lately. Some, he feels, are objectionable in that they merely seek to preserve the various injustices to which footballers have long been subjected across the continent.

Gavin, of course, is still three weeks or so away from seeing the full benefits of the Bosman ruling made available to players here, so he knows well that whatever happens in Nice will take a little while to filter down. But he knows too that the issues at stake are important for the league and every footballer playing in it.

"A lot of what is going on at the moment will have a profound effect on the way the game is run here in years to come," he said.

The process has been under way for some time even in this country where the PFAI some time ago decided that it would be well served by linking up with SIPTU. The organisation has also come to realise there is a great deal to be gained by following the lead given by some of their European colleagues.

"The problem," observes Gavin, "is that players have been conditioned to think of themselves as being different and so when they're treated differently to anyone else they have a tendency to just accept it.

"One of the first things I say to anyone with a problem is to ask `well, how would you feel about it if it happened to you in your other job'. Almost invariably they say that there's no way that they'd take it and so I tell them that they shouldn't take it in football either then because that's part of their career too."

Gradually attitudes are beginning to change and not just those of the players. So far, Gavin reckons, the union has taken five disputes involving members to the Labour Court or a Rights Commissioner and on every occasion the ruling has gone in favour of the footballer. "They just take football out of the equation and that," he says, "is forcing clubs to change the way they do things, making them think more like real employers".

Asked about the clubs which are less problematic to deal with, Gavin mentions the four or five biggest clubs in the country. But even with the likes of Shelbourne, Bohemians and St Patrick's Athletic, there can be difficulties, not least over the continuing move towards squads based around a core of full-time professional players.

"The problem is that they look for the part-time players to do the same amount of work as the full-timers.