FIFA: No replay!

Striker10

Mate I was born in England. Some people are very patronizing minutes after laughing at the irish lads - that's a bit too early for me and the maradona comment is probably used subliminally to get across we've been in the same boat and you don't like it so can you lay off a bit

It's nothing personal, not aimed at anyone in particular and for me it's a throw away comment

However I'm more proud to be half irish then English and I can relate to this incident but not really the maradona one. I imagine there was a lot of pissed of Englishmen though

Eyepopper

Which is a damming thing to be able to say about players.. they should be honest and play fair, if they dont they should be punished.

Just because a great number of them are cheats that doesn't excuse cheating, and Henry is a cheat.

henno

There is no integrity in Football.

In golf if a player fouls he holds his hand up and takes the punishment. the course officials cannot be everywhere so they depend on the integrity of the players.
In snooker the same happens, i have seen may incidents of players calling the refs attention to the fact they fouled a ball.
Im not a cricket fan but im led to believe it happens in this sport as well.

Im also led to believe you can 'dive' in FIFA 09... what does that say about the sport??

While a sport has no integrity, these incidents will always happen. Some say its all part of the game.. but should it??

Eyepopper

Were England over it 2 days after it happened Mockney?

Wonder Pigeon

What was he supposed to do, lamp him?

golden_blunder

theres never been any integrity in the game, why do you expect it to start now?

Do you honestly think Henry was gonna stick his hand up and say "pardon monsieur referee but i handled zee ball"

No he wasn't, he would have been vilified in his own country. This is a sport where a player has been shot dead for scoring an own goal. Most players are scared to own up and face the consequences, they'd rather lie their way out of it.

The only good thing to come out of this is the high level focus that a country has been cheated out of a possible world cup spot. Maybe it will set the ball rolling on change.

But most likely not, in the short-term.

So for now, Ireland needs to suck it up, accept these things happen in football and get on with it.

CnutOfAllCnuts

Correct decision, although I have sympathy for the Irish.

Feed Me

It was never going to happen - as they said, it would set a really dangerous precedent.

Eyepopper

Nah he should've clapped him on the back and swapped jerseys with him.

Feed Me

I do feel for the Irish, but I have noticed that everyone has been acting as though the Irish were definetly going through at that point. It was 1-1 and going to penalties.

Gio

Fully agree with Frankly on this thread. Anyone who knows anything about football knew that a replay wasn't gonna happen.

noodlehair

The thing is, there's no such thing as fair play, in almost any contact sport. You do what you can get away with..

The difference is, with other sports it's generally an accepted practice, and everyone respects that. Unlike in football where everyone whines like a spoilt child regardless of what actually happens. There's also a line when it comes to compromising your own pride. i.e. stuff like diving, pretending to be hurt when you're not etc...most other sports have it the other way round to football; showing you're hurt is a sign of weakness and makes you a target, so you don't go down, and you don't stay down unless you're physically unable to get up/compete.

Rugby for example. Everyone's cheating, all the fecking time. If you're not better than the other team you have to find a way to beat them, which either means being more cunning or winding them up. It's difficult to do either within the rules, so nobody sticks to them. Playing the ref is almost as important as playing the opposition. Once the game's finished though, the team who wins, is the winner...from the loser's point of view, how they achieved it is only down to their own weakness or naivety.

Football doesn't have that, for whatever reason. It's aways the ref's fault, or because so and so cheated and nothing was done about it, and it's ok to have no pride in yourself. It breeds idiots like Andy Gray, embarassing clowns like Didier Drogba, and cockends like Thierry Henry, but it's part of the whole culture of the sport, so I don't see how you'd get rid of it. Certainly not by replaying games, and probably not by introducing video refs. The level of officiating isn't the problem, it's the whole mentality of the sport.

Striker10

yeah he said possible

The way people act is irrelevent. We'd still have had as much chance as them and if you lose on pens, you lose.......atleast it's honest.

Striker10

In four years time if someone scores again this time with their hand and the incident is missed, you'll perhaps see how strange it is you sayig it'd set a dangerous precedent.

The game is already damaged. How much more damaged can it get?

Forget the replay idea because it's not the only one available. Video Evidence. Forth official. Common Sence..

If they wanted to, they could have stopped the game for 10 seconds and got the right outcome but they fuck about and incidents like this are allowed to continue...

Game changing incidents such as goals and potential red cards should be assisted with video if there is any reasonable doubt. Pens? Maybe

Allow the refs/linesmen to handle offsides, general fouls, time keeping etc..the only two key parts of the pitch that can actually win or lose a game are the two penalty areas either side of the pitch.

Sure it's complicated but it's not for us to work out the details, it's what they should be doing but they don't. We have to settle for humans know best but we have to accept they'll get a lot of big decisions in the heat of the moment wrong. Why? Cause they won't budge their fat arses on video.

Mockney

Well if it's used to shut up gloaters, then thats fine by me!

Thats cool, I just don't like the way nationalities are being used in a general way...it may be a little anal, but it only takes a second to type 'many' or 'some' in front of it...Becasue eventually someone will say something general about Irish lads and GB will ban them for it

No, but that wasn't the accusation...the accusation was that we're all still moaning about it 23 years later.

Nor I have I said get over it.

I have no problem with you lot still being angry about it, you should be, you was robbed...the only problem I have is the "fucking cheating frogs" and "English still obsessed with maradona" arguments which are getting very jingoistic and are uncalled for, and there are a lot of posters resorting to these types of arguments whenever the 15,000 thread on this gets posted and people start trying to calm it down... Lest we forget that the only top flight PL manager to offer to re-play a game on fair play grounds was French ...How's your Hitler/Henry thread coming along Pops?

Striker10

The sad thing is when you see people saying, things will get changed when it happens to a 'big' nation..and they're right and it's criminal

Until then, Fifa/Uefa make everything a drama with no happy ending unless it suits them

Remember Blatter on Rio? Couldn't shut up. It weren't even his business. He's not said one word since which is unbelieveable but not totally suprising because it don't suit his objective

Eyepopper

The Hitler Henry thing is a piss take mockers. I think most of the Maradona comments are coming after people have either laughed at the Irish (Rams classy thread) or told us to get over it, the day after it happened, I think its fair to say the English moaned for longer than 2 days after that incident so telling us to get over it less than 24 hours after it happened is a bit rich and patronising (even to me, and I cant stand international football!)

That said anyone being nationalistic or racist on the back of this is obviously an idiot.

Mockney

I know it is Poopsy

Yeah but they're cunts....I'm also not so sure about it having to be "a big nation"....there can't be many who don't think Korea were given a helping hand during the 2002 WC....their games against Spain & Italy were so farcical as to defy belief, and in those instances two 'big' nations were robbed...

YouTube - Why Korea shouldn't have reached the 2002 WC 4th place

Check that for 'being robbed'

The authorities are just complete cretins...as exemplified by their bizarre reluctance to try out anything modern and helpful regarding technology

SER19

the post to which i was replying said "the irish should get over it" so to reply in the context of the nation as a whole is fair,im not generalising anything any more than his post did.

ive heard countless english people still talking about maradona as a cheat so if you think irish passions wont be a little more stirred within a week of this happening then youre wrong.

also i said "if.....then...that post is very rich" so everything youve said was based purely on a defensive attitude and to say that maradonas goal still doesnt wind people up is absolute rubbish.

Mockney

it doesn't wind people up...It doesn't wind me up, or anyone I know up...Who do you know that it still actually "winds up"?

Also your first point is akin to two wrongs make a right...well done

Eyepopper

Where was the 2002 World Cup being staged again

No agenda in helping Korea qualify?

Decotron

Thank fuck the premership is back tomorrow, it'll hopefully put an end to this story.

SER19

to which i can easily reply "it does wind people up, it winds me up and people i know up"

do you want names and addresses of these people?

and i can see how you read it that way but thats not what i was trying to do.he said "irish should get over it" i said english should get over maradona. not neccesarily meaning the entire population i figured the person i was actually talking to would get this. youre being pedantic and completely pig headed,its very easy to say things when youre looking in from the outside. i didnt mean to generalise english people and sorry you read it that way but thats your problem.

Drifter

Under-fire France striker Thierry Henry believes a replay of the World Cup play-off with the Republic of Ireland would "be the fairest solution".

The Republic appealed to have the match replayed after an Henry handball helped France to a 2-1 aggregate victory.

But their plea was rejected by Fifa, while the French Football Federation will not advocate a rematch either.

Henry said: "Of course the fairest solution would be to replay the game but it is not in my control."

With the tie finely poised at 1-1 in the first half of extra-time, the Barcelona striker twice handled a long ball into the area before squaring for William Gallas to bundle home the eventual winner.

The incident has attracted mass news coverage across Europe, but Henry - who admitted the handball immediately after the match - waited until Friday before releasing a statement.

"Naturally I feel embarrassed at the way that we won and feel extremely sorry for the Irish who definitely deserve to be in South Africa," said the 32-year-old.


"There is little more I can do apart from admit that the ball had contact with my hand leading up to our equalising goal and I feel very sorry for the Irish."

And the former Arsenal forward insisted he was not a "cheat", claiming his handling of the ball was "instinctive".

"I have said at the time and I will say again that yes I handled the ball. I am not a cheat and never have been. It was an instinctive reaction to a ball that was coming extremely fast in a crowded penalty area," he said.

"As a footballer you do not have the luxury of the television to slow the pace of the ball down 100 times to be able to make a conscious decision. People are viewing a slow motion version of what happened and not what I or any other footballer faces in the game.

"If people look at it in full speed you will see that it was an instinctive reaction.

For the sense of justice it is quite embarrassing to see. I think even France is embarrassed



"It is impossible to be anything other than that. I have never denied that the ball was controlled with my hand. I told the Irish players, the referee and the media this after the game."

Henry's former manager Arsene Wenger echoed the frontman's thoughts, adding that the incident furthered the case for video technology to be used in future.

"Football accepts that a billion people see it, one guy doesn't see it, and yet it is the one who prevails. It cannot work," said the Gunners boss.

"At the game, I saw the referee giving a goal knowing that something was wrong and that is really sad.

"In the end, he gave a goal already knowing that it wasn't a goal. We cannot accept that in our sport and you have to do something about it. The referee didn't see it, I can understand that, the linesman didn't see it, but they couldn't get any help.

"For the sense of justice it is quite embarrassing to see. I think even France is embarrassed. We didn't play well at all and we won the game and won the qualification with a goal that was not a goal."

And Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson also advocated the use of video technology to resolve such issues.

"The stance is that Fifa prefer human decision-making rather than technology decision-making and until they change their mind there is nothing you can do about it - you have to convince them, nobody else," said the Scot.

"It is not a matter of asking every player and manager in the world their opinion because they will all share the same one, as I do myself, that technology can play a part and can help referees in a situation like the other night."

::sonny::

What do you expect from Fifa?

They have organized all to favorite, shameless, France and Portugal

They have reached their aim with happiness

Platini's house on Wednesday night

Crerand Legend

It is obvious that FIFA the French and Henry have worked out a chain of events.Firstly FIFA absolutely rule out a replay and then the French and "Le Cheat" make concillatory statements ,obviously Blatter and Platini at work trying to help them save image too late cheats are cheats full stop

mariachi-19

I wonder if an exception would have been made for France or Portugal. Karma will bite Henry on the arse however.

mariachi-19

I see a bunch of Italians milking anything thrown at them. Couple of them were nothing challenges. But in any other sense, its Italy, nobody gives a fuck.

::sonny::

- I remember after that match, FC Perugia president (Luciano Guacci) has fired Ahn Jung-hwan (who played for that italian team in the 2002)

- Trapattoni is always very unlucky with the referees, maybe the holy water is not enough

Decotron

Theres a fucking march organised from Lansdowne Rd to the French embassy in the morning.

Gringeworthy and Embarrassing. I dont know any fan who agrees with this nonsense

Tibs

I hope France sack Domenech.

Im red2

I think when opposing players (after a goal) tell the ref that a certain player handled the ball, and earned an advantage for himself leading to the goal the ref should at least ask the player accused. If that player denies it then the goal should stand(unless of course the linesman seen him handling it) If that happens and the player has indeed handled the ball then I think the refferee should have the right to report the player to the football authorities within say 24 hours and the evidence should be examined. If found to have been lying the player should then receive a match ban for at least 5 matches. The result however should stand otherwise we would have a real farce on our hands.
Ok how would that have affected wednesdays match? henry handles the ball and it leads to France scoring. The ref does not see it, the linesman is blind. The Irish players all complain that Henry handled the ball, ok says the ref to Henry did you handle the ball? "er no, i did not." Ok ref decides goal.
ref sees on replay (TV) that Henry did infact handle the ball and he lied. The ref reports Henry to FIFA and Henry recieves a 5 match ban.
Or, Henry says well it hit my hand and I did not mean it" ok the ref decides no goal. Of course the simple alternative is to allow video evidence.

FranklyVulgar

seriously!??

Striker10

to be fair he should have been fired years ago.

FranklyVulgar

i buggered that, i quoted the wrong post.

Domenech is a compete moron who should have been fired ages ago.

Name Changed

The fact that there was even a request for a replay was absolutely ridiculous. And what the hell has it got to do with the fat Biffo Cowen? Politicians jumping on the bandwagon to try and get some good publicity. Embarrassing,