Ireland asked to be 33rd team at the World Cup, says Sepp Blatter

The Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, has revealed that the Football Association of Ireland asked to be included in the World Cup as an extra team following the Republic of Ireland's controversial play-off defeat to France.

The Republic lost in Paris after Thierry Henry appeared to deliberately handle the ball in the build-up to William Gallas's decisive late goal. Blatter said that while Ireland would not become the 33rd team at the World Cup, the incident could have long-term implications on the qualifying process, and lead to the use of additional officials at next year's tournament in South Africa.

"We received a delegation from Ireland at Fifa and they were naturally absolutely unhappy at what has happened. They know the match cannot be replayed and the decision of the referee is final," said Blatter. "Naturally they have not asked for any sanctions to be given to any player or the referee, but they have asked, very humbly 'Can't we be team No33 at the World Cup?' They have asked for that, really. I will bring it to the attention of the executive committee but if we do that, we will also have to bring in Costa Rica."

The Costa Ricans believe they too were eliminated unfairly – this time by an offside goal scored by Uruguay – but Blatter's tone suggested it was inconceivable Fifa would add any more countries to the 32-team finals next year.

The FAI later confirmed in a statement that the issue was discussed at a meeting with Blatter in Switzerland last week. "The Football Association of Ireland today confirmed that it attended an hour-and-a-half meeting, at its request, with Mr Sepp Blatter, President of Fifa, on Friday in Zurich.

"A lot was discussed at the meeting and at one stage the FAI asked if Ireland could be accommodated into the World Cup 2010. Other suggestions were also made to mitigate against further occurrences of such incidents, including the use of additional goalline assistant referees for Fifa international matches, further use of video technology for matches at the highest level, stronger provisions to discourage players from engaging in such blatant breaches of the Laws of the Game and provisions to strengthen referee selection for such important matches."

Sources in Ireland privately acknowledged that they are not expecting their request to be successful, but said they have also asked Fifa to consider compensating them in some other way in future, perhaps by seeded them in the draw for the 2014 finals.

Blatter, who was speaking on Monday at the opening of the Soccerex business conference in Johannesburg, said that the possibility of fielding additional referees would also be debated by the executive committee when it holds an emergency meeting on Wednesday.

The idea is known to have powerful support from within the game, with the backing of, among others, Uefa's president, Michel Platini. If Fifa's executive committee is convinced of its merits, the proposal will go before football's rule-making International Board in Zürich in March for a final decision.

"There is a lack of discipline and respect in the game by the players because they are cheating," Blatter said, "This is human beings trying to get an advantage and this is not good and we have to fight against that. We have only one man on the field of play who shall intervene in this matter. He has two assistants for the time being, perhaps more in the future. He has to make an immediate decision. He has only two eyes. So match control is now on the agenda. How shall we avoid such situations as we have seen in this very specific match?

"It's possible we will make additional officials for the World Cup but we have to see if it is feasible or realistic," he said. "How can it happen that all over the world, through TV cameras, we have seen through a cheating handball that a pass was given for a goal? Everyone is asking what is and what isn't fair play. The highest crime in football is touching the ball with the hands."

Blatter insisted that he had not changed his stance against the use of technology or video replays to assist the referee – "We have to maintain the human face of football and not go into technology," he said – but he added that Fifa would reconsider the organisation of the qualifying competition for future World Cups, and could end the current play-off system that possibly gives the team playing at home in the second leg an unfair advantage.

"On one match it is decided if you are in or out and this is not the spirit behind this World Cup," he said. "We must have a look at this. There is so much at stake."

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/nov/30/republic-of-ireland-world-cup-fifa