INTERNATIONAL SOCCER: A MATTER of hours yesterday before the organisation's chief executive Jerome Valcke made it clear there is no chance of the Republic of Ireland team being allowed into the World Cup by way of a back door, Liam Brady labelled Sepp Blatter "a bit of a loose cannon and an embarrassment to Fifa".
In a move that made it clear how little the Ireland management team reckoned they had to lose, Giovanni Trapattoni’s assistant levelled a string of criticisms at the game’s most influential man over his handling of the fall-out from Ireland’s play-off defeat in Paris, from showing disrespect in the manner in which he brought the issue up on Monday to breaking the confidence in which the association expected last week’s meeting in Zurich would be treated to failing to acknowledge the restraint shown by Ireland players and supporters alike in the wake of the referee’s error in St Denis.
“I’m afraid Mr Blatter is a bit of a law unto himself,” said Brady. “I thought he was very disrespectful in how he presented his facts at the business conference in South Africa.
“He totally ignored most of the controversial things that went on that evening. He never had anything to say about Henry’s behaviour after scoring the goal and how that stands against his campaign to have fair play within the game.
“He didn’t say anything about the appalling mistake the officials made, to miss such a blatant handball.
“He didn’t even have the grace to acknowledge the behaviour of the Irish players after the game. Not one player got booked after that incident, not one player got booked after the match.
“There were 20,000 Irish fans in the stadium but not one fan caused trouble in the stadium in Paris that night or in the city that night. I think my country deserves a bit more recognition from Blatter than the way he presented it to the press conference.”
Brady also criticised Blatter’s decision to go public on the matter in the first place given the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) FAI, he feels, believed the contents of their meeting with the Fifa president last week would be treated with discretion.
“I was told that they went to a private, a supposedly private, meeting with Mr Blatter and officials from Fifa a couple of evenings ago,” said the former Ireland skipper. “I don’t think they believed that Mr Blatter was going to reveal what was said at the meeting. I believe they agreed that it would be confidential.
“Mr Blatter chose to talk about our request to be considered as the 33rd team. I think when we asked for that, we knew there was very little chance of that happening. (But) we asked because we wanted to have them respond in a measured way and see what they had to say. After all, Mr Blatter is responsible for the officials.
“The way he presented it, it was bound to be (laughed at). He was presenting it to business people and he’s very close to business people. People will be watching Mr Blatter and his decisions closely from now on.
“I’ve been a player. I’ve gone to Paris a couple of times and been on the wrong end of decisions. When it comes to the big teams and big business in football, you will find that you do usually get the decisions but forget about that, we can accept that. What we can’t accept is how he has presented the case to the media in South Africa. He needs to show some respect.”
A little later, Fifa’s French general secretary Valcke told a news conference Ireland should not entertain hopes of being given an extra place because of France’s controversial handball goal.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a nonsense but it is impossible,” he said, “but there’s no hope to give that there will be any more than 32 teams at the World Cup in South Africa.”
Valcke said that, as Ireland had made an official request, the matter would have to go before Wednesday’s organising committee meeting in Cape Town. But he insisted Blatter had told the Irish very clearly they had no chance of success.
Valcke said there would be too many organisational problems to overcome and that other teams who felt penalised by poor refereeing decisions could also come forward and make similar claims.
“We had 853 qualifying matches,” he said. “It’s sad that we are talking about just one game.”
PLATINI ALSO SLATED OVER SEEDINGS
IN addition to taking aim at Sepp Blatter, Liam Brady (pictured) also criticised Michel Platini for his part in Uefa following Fifa's lead by seeding the qualification play-offs for the next European Championships in Poland and Ukraine.
"How fair is it to have a second seeded draw for the play-offs?" asked Brady. "It's all wrong and I see that Uefa have followed him by doing the same. That's Michel Platini, who is supposed to be the champion of the underdogs. I don't really get it and I don't think it's good for the game. I think if enough people show their distaste for it, Fifa and Uefa might have a rethink." Uefa have actually gone further than Fifa did insofar as the seeded teams will automatically get to play the first legs of their play-offs away from home in two years time. In the recent World Cup play-offs, France were the only seeds to gain the advantage of being drawn to play away first.
The seedings will be based on the same Uefa ranking list recently used to allocate countries to pots for the Euro 2012 qualification draw which takes place in Warsaw on February 7th but updated to take account of the World Cup finals and European group games.
Ireland lie 23rd in the list but would have to be considerably more highly placed to even have a chance of being seeded for the play-offs if they finish amongst the eight runners-up from nine groups.
– Emmet Malone
