IRELAND DEMAND FRANCE REPLAY

Football authorities in the Republic of Ireland have asked that the second leg of their World Cup play off with France be replayed.

The Football Association of Ireland has lodged a complaint with Fifa after they were knocked out in Paris last night following a French goal which should have been disallowed.

The ROI went out 2 – 1 on aggregate after a 1 – 1 draw away from home. But in the build up to the French goal, Barcelona’s Thierry Henry clearly handled the ball on 2 occasions. While the first could be described as instinctive, the second looked calculated.

An FAI statement read:

roi want france replay The hand ball, was recognised the Fifa commissioner, the referee observer and the match officials, as well as by the player himself.

There is precedent for the invalidation of such results. In 2005, the bureau of the Fifa World Cup organising committee reached a decision to invalidate the result of a World Cup qualification match between Uzbekistan and Bahrain on the basis of a ‘technical error by the referee of the match’.

The Football Association of Ireland is hoping that Fifa and its disciplinary committee will, on behalf of football fans world-wide, act in a similar fashion so that the standards of fair play and integrity can be protected.


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11 Comments

  1. says: ill-d

    if they had a rematch in 2005 because of ‘technical error by the referee of the match’ then why not now?

    thats as big a ‘technical error by the referee of the match’ as ive ever seen.

    if not i smell conspiracy.
    of course fifa wants all the big nations in the world cup if they can help it.

  2. says: Ron

    FIFA World Cup is a big soccer event showcasing the best players on earth. It is bigger than anything else in the planet with million and billion eyes glued to the event. Its is every footballer dreams to play in the World Cup. Fifa always promote fair play in any football matches. To be fair to Ireland, it deserve a fair passage to the final. The officals was totally wrong to overlook the handball incident which eventally led to France goal and unfairly denied the Irish the big ticket to South Africa.I just think its unfair for Irish nation. So FIFA, please grant Ireland a rematch and allow the winning team to get the final slot by the mean of fairplay.

  3. says: José Luis

    This was not a “Technical error”, the referee simply did not saw or didn´t want to see the hand.
    Well, then France should also complain FIFA because Ireland´s goalkeeper, a few minutes before Henry´s basketball play held Anelka´s left foot in the area and the penalty shot was not marked.
    I think FIFA should punish Henry with at least 3 matches and remove the Referee´s and line referee´s FIFA´s badge….

  4. says: fizz

    The promotional aspect of soccer is all what FIFA’s about. Their goal is to spread the game to the corners of the globe, and a team like France is going to do a greater job, due to its prominence, rather than the Republic of Ireland. As much as I would love for a rematch, it pains me to know that FIFA will probably not schedule one, due to the reasons stated above. Henry’s handball CLEARLY altered the flight path of the ball, but it seems FIFA will turn a blind eye to this disgrace.

  5. says: rudy16

    i think things like these are wat make up part of the game
    sure it wasnt right to hand ball it but wat can fifa do ? should they also replay the argentina game were maradona did la mano de dios ??

  6. says: jimbob

    oh come on people, if the ref saw it it would have been a free kick as he did not it was not its that simple. you have to take the “for and against” as far as the decisions are concerned. other wise the 4th official should be watching t.v footage so he can intervene.
    when is the 86 hand of god game to be replayed? things like this make the game what it is, what would we have to moan about in the pub.

  7. says: ill-d

    i say this all the time….there SHOULD be an official watching tv footage so he can intervene.

    they do it in american football (pigskin, gridiron, whatever) and it works well. just give each team two ‘challenges’ and if a bad call is made then a team can use a challenge and the ref would utilize slow motion instant replay to review the call. that would greatly decrease the amount of game changing horrid calls (or non calls) like this one.

  8. says: Scott

    DJC is not the man, in fact, far from being the man, he is clearly a man who gains some sort of childish pleasure from leaving moronic comments presumably just to rile and provoke response from those less moronic than he, well it won’t work………………….ah crap.

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