The Football Association of Ireland has lodged a complaint with Fifa asking for their World Cup play-off against France to be replayed.

Unfortunately that'll never happen EndAll. What I don't understand is how on earth the linesman didn't see it. He had a perfect view!

Typical of those cheese-eating surrender monkeys!

Its a the Hand of God Version 2.0

Yep, Australia got fucking jipped last WC but Italy.

Yep, Australia got fucking jipped last WC but Italy.

The Assistant Referee (not linesmen) was a bit out of position and might've been blocked by a player. Also it's on the other side of the goal very far away in Soccer Referee standards so I'm thinking he just didn't feel confident and wasn't 100% sure.

That's a *terrible way to win.

Adding video to channels (Terrible) - requested by Throbbin.

Disgraceful. Hopefully this puts pressure on Futbol to properly officiate their sport. I can't stand to watch it any more because the officials seem to decide 50% of matches (usually in the wrong direction when they do).

Use instant replay. Suspend and fine players for diving (after the fact, even).

Don't mention that Italian dive. Argh!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CQf4zYJ2fY

How can you not have instant replay in a sport where 1 bad call can give or take 100% of the offensive output?

>> ^BansheeX:
How can you not have instant replay in a sport where 1 bad call can give or take 100% of the offensive output?

If you want to keep up the flow of the game, you can't have instant replay. No need for a commercial break every 30 seconds.

Theoretically, the two additional officials currently being tested in the UEFA Europa League are supposed to keep an eye on the action inside the box, which would have included this unfortunate incident. Does it work? Fuck if I know.

Maybe introduce instant replay, but limit it on goals.

Props for Henry though for admitting his action the second he was asked during an interview. Would have been nice to tell the ref about it when it happened, but they would have lynched his ass in France, so ...

who cares, WE BEAT RUSSIA and are going to South Africa in 2010

*dead

This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by residue.

He claimed the ball "rebounded" off of his hand, when in fact, it hit his arm, and then he deliberately used his hand to slap it towards his foot. This pisses me off. And that's not even mentioning the two offside forwards.

>> ^kymbos:
Don't mention that Italian dive. Argh!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CQf4zYJ2fY


Don't confuse clumsy defending with diving...

I'll give Henry some credit - at least he's acknowledging the fact that he played it with his hand, and showing regret for how it affected the Irish side.
Awful miss by the officials.

>> ^campionidelmondo:
>> ^kymbos:
Don't mention that Italian dive. Argh!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CQf4zYJ2fY

Don't confuse clumsy defending with diving...


Yeah that wasn't exactly a dive. But the Italian's are quite notorious divers..

Grosso needs to learn from this guy if he's gonna keep on diving:



That was completely unrelated, but still...I just hate that guy

Wow, that sucks. Forgive the cursory knowledge of the rules, but isn't a hand ball one of the worst offenses you could make in football aside from letting Elizabeth Lambert play on your team?

>> ^Kevlar:
isn't a hand ball one of the worst offenses you could make in football


If you aren't a goalkeeper, the only time the hands should be used is to preclude the possibility of a painful ball-ball interaction. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuvhNms5skE for further enlightenment.

What really bothers me about this is that people seem to think this is a huge controversy, yet bad calls are made in all sports. Anyone who watches any other sport knows this. I can't believe people are trying to petition to have the game replayed. It seems a bit ridiculous to me, and sets a bad precedent. In fact I can pin point in almost every game this year for my favorite hockey team, where the officials made a bad or wrong call, but it's not like I will petition to have the game replayed. It's naturally part of the game. While it's unfortunate that a bad call was made for a world cup qualifier, people should naturally take bad calls as being part of the experience, for better or worse. How many games have been won/lost due to diving which caused a penalty kick?

The only thing here that needs to be looked at is how the game is regulated by the officials. If they can't properly spot hand balls in that area of the field, either add more officials, or instant replays for goals which disallows goals on obvious rule infractions.

The hand ball is only part of the furore. There's also a fair bit of miffage that seedings were introduced for the play-offs to favour the 'big name' countries, putting further pressure on the referees of the play-offs.

Maybe the line judge was too busy looking at his new big screen TV.

Oh silly Sift people...you have no concept of the power of referees Such AS ME!!!!

Make better society.

Just reminded me of this phantom goal.

What I don't get is if the player tells the ref that he touched it with his hand shouldn't that be enough to disqualify the goal? It is really easy to instinctively reach out and touch the ball but it sounds like Thierry told the ref what happened. When I used to play soccer that might have been frowned upon by your own team (depending on the coaches) but the refs certainly listened to the players if they ever called something on themselves.
-Karl

What amazes me is that people still think that the winners of professional sporting events have anything to do with the skill of the players.

As soon as money is introduced, and it becomes entertainment, you should just expect the spirit of fair play and sportsmanship to go right out the window. The owners associations only care about putting more fans in the stands at the highest possible ticket price. The league controls the officiating, and the money controls the league. Every professional sport has their examples of how money ruins them: the NFL that welcomes felons with open arms, the NBA has referees betting on the outcomes of the games and then making calls to get those outcomes, baseball players juicing up on steroids so they can hit more homeruns, cyclists blood doping to get an edge, sporting leagues tweaking the seeding of playoffs to put particular teams in the finals, etc. ad nauseaum. These will all continue to become more and more prevalent until the fan outrage reaches critical mass and they stop buying tickets or watching matches on the telly. When the money goes away the ethics of the games will return. I'm not gonna hold my breath.