Ok....its been a solid 72 hours since Thierry "Le Thief" Henry single handedly (excuse the pun) expect more :) denied the Republic of Ireland entry to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Now, the Irish media have gone bananas since that eventful night in Paris, some of the media coverage has been fair and the rest not so fair I think.
Overall, with 100% honesty, I do not think the match should be replayed (awaits abuse). Things like this happen in football, everyday, in every country and at every different level. It was just extremely unfortunate and heartbreaking that it happened to our little country who battled so bravely (and actually played very well) in those 120 minutes in Paris. Now, I am as disgusted and upset as the next Irish person or neutral football fan about this, however if this match was replayed, it would cause absolute chaos to the game. Every match played which had a similar incident would be asked to be replayed and this simply cannot happen. FIFA will not let this happen and they are well justified in that. However, what should happen is the introduction of video technology into the game of football. The fact that this route has not even been begun at a smaller level is unbelivable. Uefa currently have an extra official behind each goal for all of the Europa League games, why hasn't this process begun years ago? It is a very simple thing, and i cant see it being complicated in any way. If there was an extra official behind that goal on wednesday night, Thierry Henry's double handball would of been seen, (or would it? *Cough*Sepp Blatter *Cough*) though that is another debate in its entirety and i wont be going into that now.
Alot of people against video technology in football argue that it would disrupt the flow of our beatufiul game and that it cannot be compared to other sports where video technology is present such as Rugby, Cricket and Tennis. I think this argument is ridiculous, it takes a maximum of 45 seconds for TMO(Television Match Official) decision to be made in rugby, and about 30 seconds for such a decision to be made in Cricket and Tennis. Ok, a football match could become a bit of a farce if these decisions had to be made every few minutes which is why they should introduce a maximum of maybe 3 protests per manager or captain of the team. Each team should only be allowed to make a protest 3 times per game. This will make the game less desruptive. It is a simple idea really, and it baffles me why FIFA have not introduced this yet.....
This post was actually meant to be more about the Irish football team but i guess i got a little bit sidetracked, however i will make a post about that in due course.
Most importantly, I would like to congratulate the Irish team for giving an absolutely wonderful and warrior like performance over the two playoff matches in France. There were the better team over 210 minutes of football, the two goals which we conceded were a goal which was a deflection and a goal which never should of been. Its tough to take, but I think the Irish team can become stronger after this and I look forward to the Euro 2012 qualification campaign.
....and who said football was a beautiful game?
