Republic of Ireland assistant manager Liam Brady has described Sepp Blatter as “an embarrassment” after the FIFA president revealed that the Irish had asked to be the “33rd” team at next year’s World Cup finals.
Brady said the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) had expected FIFA to consider the request in private after Thierry Henry’s handball helped earn France victory over Ireland in a World Cup playoff.
He expressed dismay that Blatter had chosen to make the request public in comments at the Soccerex football business conference in Johannesburg on Monday.
Brady told Sky Sports News: “He’s a bit of a loose cannon. He’s an embarrassment to FIFA.
“I’m afraid Mr Blatter is a law unto himself. I thought it was very disrespectful how he presented this fact.
“He’s currently ignored most of the controversial things that went on that evening.”
Brady said the FAI had known the request to be allowed to join the 32-team finals was likely to be dismissed by FIFA, after their initial efforts to have the match replayed were thrown out.
“We asked because we wanted to have them respond in a measured way, and see what they had to say.”
Brady added: “I think my country deserves more recognition from Blatter.
“After all Mr Blatter was responsible for the (match) official.
“He didn’t say anything about the appalling mistake the official made to miss a blatant handball.
“He never had anything to say about that at all, like Henry’s behaviour after scoring the goal and how that stands within his campaign to have fair play within the game.”
Blatter, speaking ahead of Friday’s World Cup draw, drew laughter from the crowd when he said Ireland “have not asked for any sanctions… Very humbly, they have asked ‘Can’t we be team number 33 in the World Cup?'”
“Finally they asked for that. I will bring it to the attention of the executive committee,” he added, referring to the meeting of FIFA’s decision makers starting on Wednesday.
France’s playoff with Ireland was poised at 1-1 on aggregate in the second leg in Paris when Henry used his hand to keep the ball in play before passing to William Gallas for the decisive goal.
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