Yesterday’s announcement of a three-month suspension to fixtures until June 19 is considered the best-case scenario, with the 19 clubs braced for a further delay should, as expected, the virus’s grip on the country tightens.

Money was scarce enough around the domestic game before this unprecedented interruption which leaves players and staff in a precarious situation.

Stephen McGuinness, secretary of the Players Football Association of Ireland, has admitted contract talks for his members are inevitable and imminent, with a general feeling that very few professionals will escape the cull.

By attempting to balance the books in the absence of vital matchday revenue, the clubs and the National League Executive Committee that represent them in the FAI have explored various sources of potential rescue packages.

With no immediate money on offer from either the FAI or Uefa, the go-to pot was the €800,000 grant announced by the Government. This sum was earmarked by the Department of Sport in their Memorandum of Understanding agreed with the FAI on January 30 as part of the broader bailout deal for Irish football.

Shane Ross, still Sports Minister until a new government is formed, included the figure in the annual €5.6m state aid promised to the FAI in return for committee reform.

That yearly grant was doubled from the previous figure, which had been frozen by the department last April as controversy engulfed the association.

It is stated in that MOU that “€0.8m of the €5.8m will be dedicated to programmes that underpin the development of the League of Ireland and Women’s National League (i.e. additional to funding that is already provided by the FAI to these national leagues)”.

This matter was discussed yesterday during a conference call involving representatives of all 19 clubs.

While ideas were plentiful on the use to which the money would be expended, it was ultimately felt by the majority that these exceptional circumstances necessitated an early drawdown.

Were it to proceed, clubs would receive just over €20,000 each, enough to cover wages of a top-flight club for a few weeks and considerably longer in the case of First Division outfits.

That payment will be by no means straightforward as it was pointed out the sharing of resources with the women’s game.

Only seven of the 19 men’s clubs have entered a team into the women’s league, with a few more part of the underage tiers.

This injection, coupled with a similar amount donated by ex-League of Ireland players based in England, helps the league’s plight, as does prize-money payments from last year and the abolition of the affiliation fees infamously linked to the old regime.

However, it would take inflows of an altogether more seismic nature to compensate for the revenue loss to clubs of around €4m over the next three to five months.

The FAI’s financial controller Alex O’Connell has, since a Government announcement nine days ago, all but shut down sport in this country, been working out the maths and the results brought home the scale of the task.

There certainly cannot be any doubt about the dependency of League of Ireland clubs on match-day income.

A meagre flagship sponsorship deal and lack of a monetary broadcasting windfall only serve to highlight how perilous the traditional business model is when weeks, and in this unique case, pass without games being played.

“We don’t have lucrative TV deals to make up for having games behind closed doors,” Niall Quinn, the FAI’s deputy chief executive, said this week about the crisis.

We need to be playing with crowds for the system to work. The effect of not playing from month to month is critical for us.

“These are extraordinary times and who knows if life will ever be the same again.”

Teams, whenever they restart matches, certainly won’t look the same as a clutch of foreign players operating in the league have returned home or back to their parent clubs.

They will probably get better and swifter offers in other leagues around Europe.

There are also fears that the First Division will be decimated. Players at the vast majority of clubs are part-time amateurs and won’t be able to claim the state benefit of €203 per week to make up for the loss of their second job.

Attracting them back to supplement their full-time employment, likely on lower terms, won’t be easy in the future.

To some on the Irish football circuit, this outbreak is more about warfare than welfare.

There is no silver bullet along the holster of the new FAI hierarchy despite multimillions being made available through the bailout.

That was already ringfenced before this weakest of links was cruelly exposed.