The Eircom League's initiative to get their four top teams fighting fit for their challenge on Europe starts tonight but have they got it wrong! Bohemians travel to Turner's Cross to take on Cork City and UCD host Shelbourne at Belfield with both games kicking off at 19:30 BST.

But why in all honesty have the league decided to put the competition on in the middle of Euro 2000 and why is it on when UCD are already out of Europe when the purpose of the Cup is to get teams fit for their excursions abroad?

Cork City's new man in charge Colin Murphy has questioned the validity of the Cup. He believes that it has little use for his side. He said: "We've only been back training for one week and are not match fit. We don't play in the UEFA Cup for six weeks so it's of little use to us."

Murphy has drafted youth team players Joe Gamble and Damien Delaney into his squad for the game against Bohemians tonight. The Leesiders will face two of Bohemians new Croatian players who have been signed on a three-month contract at the Dalymount club.

Bohs boss Roddy Collins said: "We've got four Croats on trial and two of them, Elvis Plantak and Srdjan Campric, will be involved against Cork."

In other news at Bohemians it seems that Shaun Maher's proposed move to Bournemouth has hit a major stumbling block. Maher was hoping to follow team-mate Gareth O'Connor to the English Second Division club but it seems that the deal will not be done now because of money owed on the player to his former club, Fulham.

In the other game at Belfield, Shelbourne will line-out with a full-strength team including new signings Stephen Murphy, Richard Foran and Jonathan Prizeman. The club have been on a five-day training camp in St. Etienne and all their players came through it without any problems.

UCD will only be playing for prize money and could well be counted as favourites to lift the £10,000 first prize on Sunday. But they should be asking questions of the league officials as to why their European challenge is less important than those of the other three teams in the competition.