FIFA confirms France-Ireland match will not be replayed

The football's world ruling body FIFA has officially turned down a request from the Irish football authorities to stage a replay of their controversial World Cup playoff defeat to France.

By News Wires (text)

REUTERS - Soccer's world governing body FIFA has confirmed that the controversial France v Ireland World Cup playoff will not be replayed.

The Irish football association (FAI) appealed to FIFA for a replay after Thierry Henry handled the ball when setting up William Gallas's extra-time equaliser in Wednesday's 1-1 draw in Paris that sent France to the World Cup with a 2-1 aggregate win.

However, as was widely expected, FIFA wasted little time in rejecting the plea.

"FIFA has replied to the request made by the FAI to replay the World Cup play-off match between France and the Republic of Ireland," the body said on its website (www.fifa.com) on Friday.

"In the reply, FIFA states that the result of the match cannot be changed and the match cannot be replayed. As is clearly mentioned in the Laws of the Game, during matches, decisions are taken by the referee and these decisions are final."

The FAI said on Thursday that the incident, which dominated news bulletins in Ireland all day as well as being discussed in parliament, had "damaged the integrity of the sport".

The Irish government supported the call for a replay and Prime Minister Brian Cowen said he would discuss the matter with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Brussels.

However, Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni paved the way for disappointment when he told a Thursday news conference it would be impossible to replay the match.

"I cannot ask this because I know it is impossible. When a referee decides, it ends the game for me," he said.

The Italian instead criticised FIFA's late decision to seed the playoff draw and called on the ruling body to scrap extra-time in future playoffs as it handed an advantage to the team drawn at home in the second leg.

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Date created : 20/11/2009

Comments (3)

Sport will suffer

by Anonyme - 21/11/2009 - 13:56

Hi I am an Irish supporter and i have travelled all over the world, we support our team if they are winning drawing or losing matches and we have always accepted defeat gracefully. However, I would say that nearly 5 million people in Ireland today feel cheated and angry at the FIFA and FFF for their refusal to agree a replay. Henry has admitted hand ball the FFF have said they do not deny it was hand ball so what is the problem with a replay to ensure fairplay?? Henry has said that a replay is the fairest way to resolve this issue. Henry is a great player the french are great supporters and in both 2004 and 2009 i felt at home in Paris. But if this result just stands and a replay is not granted Irish people and football fans all over the world will forever feel that cheating is being rewarded... after all its only football and thats not important to ordinary people or is it??? from the Proud Republic of Ireland Alan Francis OLeary

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The hypocrisy over this issue

by Anonyme - 20/11/2009 - 22:22

The hypocrisy over this issue is unbelievable!

World Cup qualification is not determined by one match but is the sum total of all the qualifying matches. France and Ireland got to the playoffs based on the results of previous matches.

What Henry did was wrong. But I will only start to take the Irish seriously when any one member of the Irish team comes out to say that they did not have a single incorrect decision made in their favor through out their qualifying campaign. I can bet that even the Irish team knows that they cannot say that with a clear conscience.

We can talk about using replays for contentious decisions in future. But that cannot be applied retroactively.

Rules cannot be conveniently altered only when they favor any one team. There were more than 100 matches played worldwide that determined which teams qualified. There were tens of unfair decisions during those matches.

Amending the rules for the Irish would be to say the least, unfair.

I salute FIFA for steering clear of the emotional madness.