Stephen Kenny says "parish politics stuff" is holding back the implementation of a proper strategy that maximises League of Ireland clubs' chances of regularly making it to the group stages of European competitions.
Kenny will lead St Patrick's Athletic into battle against Azerbaijani outfit Sabah at Tallaght Stadium on Thursday in the first leg of their Europa Conference League third qualifying round.
It's a tall order for Pat's, who will have to negotiate a tough league game away to Galway United on Sunday afternoon before they fly to Azerbaijan - via Turkey - the following day.
The Saints asked Galway if they would consider postponing that fixture, but the request was rejected. Kenny had called on the FAI to step in, however, the match will go ahead as planned at 3pm, with Pat's hopes for a 6pm kick-off also turned down.
The manager stressed that he has no personal issues with FAI board members or administrators but lamented a one-size-fits-all approach to the fixture scheduling that he believes is hurting Irish teams in Europe.
"You have to exchange ideas and have debate, not close down the hatches."
Kenny first called for the powers that be to address the issue last Monday when he said: "Ultimately the FAI board should rule on this. Obviously you have sporting people like Packie Bonner and also Marc Canham as director of football, they should be part of the decision making on this."
On Wednesday, the former Republic of Ireland boss commented: "I have no beef with Marc Canham, I get on well with Marc.
"I was making the point that if football people, people who consider the game in that way, if they were asked, 'what's our best way of getting through for an Irish team?' We make these statements, these strategy statements, 'oh, we want three teams or two teams in the group stages'.
"That's never happening unless you have a strategy, and the only strategy (at the moment) is that the team that wins the league has a chance and everyone else has no chance. We'll only ever have one (team making the group stages) unless someone does something extraordinary.
"This is a chance for Irish football, go and give them every chance, but then there is parish politics stuff and that wins."
Kenny said that he had not been in dialogue with anyone from the FAI over the club's hopes to push the Galway game back.
"I didn't speak to anyone," he said.
"I was offering a viewpoint. Packie Bonner, because he's a football director, and Marc Canham should be consulted by the administrators on whether it was a good idea or not. They should have a viewpoint because they'd be making a decision based on what gives you the best chance of winning.
"They'd be thinking, 'how can we have a level playing field for everyone? Will there be a problem this time next year?', all that stuff. It's not about fairness, it's about the opportunities to create special moments for the country and how can you do that?
"I don't think we would have got to the group stages at Dundalk (in 2016) only for we got two games cancelled.
"I'm not trying to personalise with anybody, with the administrators or the football directors. I'm trying to think there should be a collaborative approach with consultation.
"That's why people have expertise, it shouldn't be different departments. It should be a fluid exchanging of ideas between departments. Not, 'that's your department, that's your department, that's your department'.
"You have to exchange ideas and have debate, not close down the hatches. Someone comes in and closes down everything, circle the wagons and fight your corner. That's the response. That's how I view it."
Sabah have full internationals from Luxembourg, Morocco, Jamaica and Azerbaijan in their ranks. They will come to Dublin with confidence, armed with some really high-quality attackers, albeit they do look vulnerable defensively.
They beat Maccabi Haifa 3-0 away in the first leg of the last round only to crumble to a 6-3 home loss in the return game. They ultimately squeezed through on penalties.
"It's interesting, their profile of players," Kenny said. "It's a multicultural team. Their front four are Jamaica, Nigeria, Germany, Slovakia. Midfielder players are Croatia, a Spanish centre-back.
"Obviously they've had investment. They've a very, very good front four who are quite talented. So we'll have to really raise our game.
"I think for us we have to try to establish control in the game. We've got to find the space to do that and establish some control and we'll see after that."
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