Wednesday 5 April 2017 13:11, UK
Stephanie Roche has urged the Football Association of Ireland to act quickly to stave off the threat of strike action ahead of Monday’s friendly with Slovakia
The Irish team are unhappy that they have to play for free as well as the sub-standard conditions they claim they are forced to endure on international duty.
Ireland's players also say the FAI has refused to engage with their appointed representatives, the Professional Footballers' Association of Ireland (PFAI).
And 2015 FIFA Puskas Award nominee Roche says although the team does not want to boycott next week's fixture, they will if the FAI fails to act quickly to resolve the situation.
"For us, this is the last straw," the Sunderland Ladies striker told Sky Sports News HQ.
"The last thing we want to do as footballers and as a team is have to threaten to strike.
"We tried to speak to the FAI behind the scenes two years ago so this is an ongoing issue for us as a team. It's an ongoing situation we feel hasn't been resolved and today we had to go public with it.
"There are a lot of issues and we are all together on it but some of the main issues are that a lot of our squad are home-based players, they work full-time jobs and I think last year they had to take 40 days of unpaid leave from work which isn't reimbursed.
"These are big players in our squad and it's unfortunate that we have to go into some of our qualifiers with those players missing some training sessions beforehand because they can't afford to leave work.
"We're not asking for a lot. It's a small amount. We have a squad of players capable of competing at the highest level but we need a squad of players to be able to do that
"We really don't want to strike. We want to be back in training with our coach, which is supposed to be tomorrow, and we hope it can be resolved by then.
"It's in the FAI's hands now and we are open to all options but we hope it doesn't come down to the most drastic one which would be to not play the game.
"We want to play for our country we just want the FAI to negotiate with the PFAI on our behalf so that we can get back to doing what we do best, which is playing for our country and trying to push forward for World Cup qualification."
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