Former Cycling Ireland board member Anto Moran has questioned whether the procedures surrounding the board meeting last Friday week were followed strictly in accordance with the federation’s rules.

At that meeting the board voted to nominate UCI president Pat McQuaid to go forward for election for a third term in office. If the meeting was found to have been conducted on compromised legal grounds it would have implications for the legal standing of the McQuaid nomination.

Moran revealed today that he had contacted Cycling Ireland to raise his concerns, though he did not say exactly what procedures he believed had been deviated from.

One source described the issue as “a technicality” while another termed it “housekeeping, or where the rules for holding meetings may not have been rigidly stuck to”.

Moran said when raising his concerns with Cycling Ireland about the validity of the meeting, and thus the validity of the nomination for McQuaid approved at it, he once again pushed the federation to put McQuaid’s nomination to an EGM.

He believes Cycling Ireland is taking advice on the legal standing of the board meeting. If the legal advice concurs that the meeting was invalid, Cycling Ireland could simply reconvene another board meeting and vote again.

Cycling Ireland CEO Geoff Liffey had no comment at this stage when contacted by stickybottle.

While a board meeting will take place tomorrow, Friday, it has been planned for a fortnight and has not been called specifically for the purpose of reconsidering or voting again on the McQuaid issue. However, that fact would not preclude a vote being taken again tomorrow.

If a meeting were convened again on the McQuaid nomination issue, it is unclear if any of the board members would reconsider how they voted two weeks ago. There has been considerable backlash against the board, particularly on social media, with many believing the issue should have been put to an EGM.

If Cycling Ireland decides not to ask the board to vote again, it could potentially put the legality of the McQuaid nomination at considerable ongoing risk. If, for example, a legal challenge were taken in the courts in Ireland to the legality of the meeting and that appeal was upheld, the board would be forced to vote again.

However, if any such court action took place within 90 days of the UCI presidential election in late September it may throw McQuaid’s campaign into crisis because the window for candidates to put a nomination in place would be closed by then.

Last Friday week Moran was the only one of the seven voting board members to vote against the nomination. Another member abstained, while the other five voted in favour of the nomination.

In the fortnight leading up to the meeting, McQuaid met each board member individually for up to two hours. The one-to-one meetings took place in hotels, mostly in Dublin.

He is believed to have outlined his vision of the future to each board member and also outlined the progress he believed had been made on doping and on the development of the sport in the near eight years he has been UCI president.

When he addressed the board at its meeting last Friday week, he spoke to them at length about the progress he believed had been made on the globalisation of the sport. When the issue of doping arose, McQuaid told the board that when Lance Armstrong came back to the sport in 2009 – during McQuaid’s presidency – there was no evidence at the time to prove he had doped.