Platini aligned himself with Blatter to get where he is. If he was ethical, he wouldn’t have done this to begin with, further, Blatter would have chopped him down to size by now as he can’t afford to have ethical people looking over his shoulder or be threatening to his position.

I wouldn’t suggest that video be introduced hastily, and we should accept that the system will need refinement over an extended period through trial and error. I would suggest that the a-league would be an ideal place to begin the trials as it isn’t really high-stakes top flight football, yet every game is covered by multiple cameras. It’s far from unanimous, but it seems a fair chunk of the australian football public agree with video replay as a concept. Perhaps because we are accustomed to it’s use in other sports and other cultural reasons plenty of people speculate on.

Trialling technology in the a-league may have other benefits – increasing the international exposure of the league, getting brownie points from fifa, etc… But we’d need fifa’s or the afc’s permission first wouldn’t we?

For starters, the ball is only alive for 50 mintues of a 90 minute game – so there are stacks of breaks in a game of soccer.

But most importantly – any time a goal is scored, the celebrations go for 2 or 3 minutes – so to argue that to take 10 seconds out to quickly replay something would disrupt the flow of the game is a nonsense.

But all that aside – I really like the suggestion that came from that Fox Sports news panel, the idea that each coach gets one right of appeal per game – and to be honest – that’s all you need.

In other words, if a game changing decision has gone against you, the coach can exercise his one right of appeal and the 4th official would quickly check what the complaint is (bad offside call, handball, whatever).

That would eliminate 90% of all contentious issues overnight.

The refereeing appointment was made by EUFA not FIFA and FIFA or EUFA are not responsible for the referee (or the other 3 match officials) decisions and not seeing a blatant hand ball.
If the 4 of them didn’t see that, then they definitely need some help – goal line officials or video review (or gamblers anonymous).

FIFA have their hands well and truly tied on this and there is over 50 years of cheatery in the game that will never be reversed either.
FIFA should put aside everyone’s self interests wipe the slate clean and bring the game into the 21st century especially FIFA sponsored international games.

But FIFA is probably the world’s biggest political organisation and has a number of wealthy and powerful people and groups, who try and influence things for their own benefit.

Oceania and Australia in particular, hasn’t been well treated by FIFA in the past.

We were promised automatic qualification for Oceania for a WC spot, only to have it taken away from us by South American representatives.
Before joining Asia we played the fifth best South American team 3 times in four WC Qualification campaigns, when it is supposed to be evenly divided amongst the confederations. Why?
The refereeing in the Australia v Brazil WC game of 2006 was a biased disgrace.
Why is everyone bidding for the WC of 2018 and 2022 to make it so difficult for the FFA and no one challenged Brazil for 2014?

The only way we got better treatment from FIFA tomodachi, was to manoeuvre ourselves out of Oceania and into Asia.
Ganbatte Kudasai Socceroo San!

FIFA have their sins to fight and must turnface but Henry’s sins are just part of the game and he can fake apologise and just get away with it?

Btw I hate this victim of the system crap and I highly doubt that the average striker will deliberately try and deceive the ref, maybe go with the flow, but not seek to get away with WC qualification murder

Y’see if sport was merely entertainment maybe I wouldn’t have a case but it means so much more to (allegedly) Billions of people as a game so like religion there has to be justice or there has to be justice taken into the hands of those who have the conviction for justice (Soccer vigilante time). But the most aggravating thing about this whole mess is the fact that players and referees could not be more cool with each other than at the present time. Maybe the players need to reacquaint themselves with the law-givers, maybe they need to have the opportunity to confess their sins (pardon the religious overtones by the way) to the refs and in the process gain an easier route out of their sanctions. Of course that means the sanctions need to hit them like a ton of bricks.

Of course the easier option is to have 2 goal referees, but easier is not FIFA’s way, for them it is about the easiest route which means sliming their way through the path of least resistance ie settle for the old-time Spartan justice: flog them so hard you stop them from contemplating a second go but then when they’re half-naked on the ground you whisper in their ear “That’s what you get for getting caught!”

At any rate – Blatter just came across as supremely arrogant……I guess no surprises there either.

I would prefer there was reform though. A two replay limit or such and if they can’t be sure then make it a refs call and rule a try.
What about in SOO when they wasted what felt like 5 hours just to get an answer that I still think was wrong.

The Henry incident was despicable – the bloke is a cheat and won’t live it down – but over the entire qualification process in all the confederations how many games have such controversy .. sure there’s offside goals etc – but that’s football …

As for Ireland / France clash – Midfielder is right – the no reply was the right decision – to do so would open a can of worms (ie Costa Rica would surely have bunged in a request for a replay against Uruguay) Henry himself – then there’s definitely a case to argue he’s brought the game into disrepute – and a ban from the W/cup would certainly be warranted ….

Yes, the guy is a “two-faced politician”, but for many years now, from well before he took charge, this has been the job description for FIFA President. If he doesn’t keep telling everyone what they want to hear, then he loses his job. Maybe it could be otherwise – i.e., a President with genuine integrity and honesty – but I doubt it. I mean, if most of the Confederations were to hear the honest truth about themselves, they’d be furious, even if it came from someone with the stature of Pele. So what other option does Blatter have? It’s called Realpolitik.

This game was refereed by a incompetent ref and no matter how many more officials are added to a game there will always be another incident you will complain about … Sepp was right and he and his committee have ruled correctly on the matter… To do anything else would mean that you would not have a world cup every four years but a world cup every six years with so many teams calling for a replay of a result that did not go there way… Move on everybody, this incident will make the Irish a stronger team next time around…

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KB

1. you need a video ref. You just can’t have such obviously wrong decisions stand where everyone else can see they are wrong, and especially not in such important games.

2. there should be a citing system and retrospective penalties. If cheating (be it diving, tugging a jersey or handball) has a particular sanction, issue it later via the citing commissioner.

Look at it this way though. If the ref had seen the handball during the match, what would the decision have been? Handball and free kick Ireland. Why then are they proposing a different penalty for Henry, because a goal was scored and there’s been a public outcry? I can’t see what sanction you can impose on Henry – it’s not foul play.

In rugby, if a ref misses something then the citing commissioner can watch it later, cite the player and issue the appropriate penalty. But the sanction imposed is no different to what it would have been if the ref saw it during the match.

You can’t have double standards based on the level of embarrassment caused to the game.