WORLD CUP 2010:THE MANNER of Ireland's controversial exit from the World Cup last month in Paris looks increasingly likely to mean there will be additional match officials at next summer's tournament finals in South Africa after Sepp Blatter admitted that events in Paris had put the issue of "match control" firmly on the Fifa agenda.

The Irish team, though, are still set to be watching the 64 games played during June and July of next year from their armchairs despite an appeal last week by FAI chief executive John Delaney to Blatter that the event be expanded to 33 nations on this occasion in order to accommodate an Ireland team that had been unfairly eliminated from the play-offs.

Fifa’s president, who also confirmed he had spoken to French striker Thierry Henry following the incident and told him that although he understood why he did it, he did not condone his action, revealed the appeal had been made and would be put before tomorrow’s emergency meeting of the federation’s Executive Committee in Cape Town. He then effectively dismissed the proposition by suggesting “if we do that, we will also have to bring in Costa Rica”.

As it happens, this reference to another of the play-offs ties, would appear to be a remarkable red herring for it was suggested yesterday the Costa Ricans are also aggrieved over their two-legged defeat by Uruguay, supposedly on the basis of an offside in relation to one of the goals they conceded. Neither Diego Alfredo Lugamo’s goal in the first leg, however, nor Sebastian Abreu’s in the second looked remotely controversial.

All of which is somewhat beside the point because the idea the World Cup might be expanded on the eve of the draw for the finals is utterly out of the question and there would appear to have been some surprise within the game here that this aspect of the 90-minute meeting with Blatter, attended by representatives of the FAI in Zurich last week, has been highlighted publicly when it was not the subject of any written submission.

There were reports, too, that the association requested the team receive a more favourable seeding for the 2014 tournament but this has been denied.

What was pursued by the association in writing was the matter of preventing such injustices occurring again, with the Irish officials using Thierry Henry’s handball and their team’s resulting misfortune to make a case for the use of video evidence, the imposition of retrospective sanctions upon players and the deployment of additional match officials behind the goals as well as more stringent procedures for the selection of referees for such important games.

On the issue of extra officials, it seems, Blatter might be biting and if tomorrow’s meeting falls in behind the proposal, which has the firm backing of Uefa’s Michel Platini, then the required rule changes are likely to be ratified at a meeting of the International Board in Zurich in March, paving the way for the use of additional referee’s assistants behind the goals in South Africa.

“Match control is now on the agenda,” Blatter told the Soccerex business conference yesterday. “How can we avoid the cheating handball situation we had in that game between France and Ireland for example?” he asked. “I think there should be some additional (assistants) . . . if they can see or not see.

“Everyone is asking what is and isn’t fair play,” he continued. “When we see a player using his hands, well that is cheating,” he continued.

“It is not good and we have to fight against it. We have only one man (the referee) on the field of play who can intervene for the time being, with two assistants, but perhaps he will have more in the future.”

Blatter also suggested that the days of the play-offs themselves may be numbered.

Giovanni Trapattoni, meanwhile, issued a statement through the FAI rejecting reports in a couple of newspapers over the weekend that the more positive performance by the Irish team in Paris was the result of senior players challenging the veteran manager’s conservative approach and insisting on change.

In it, Trapattoni says he always uses video recordings of games to identify mistakes made by players in previous games and as an instructional tool for games about to be played.

“The tactics are decided by Mr Trapattoni,” it said. “The improvements shown progressively during the World Cup qualification campaign against Georgia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Italy and France have happened because the players know their exact roles and have learnt from what Mr Trapattoni has told them.

“Each player knows his exact task on the pitch before every game and they have followed this to the letter.

“No player decides what to do on the pitch. Under Mr Trapattoni’s management, the players follow only what Mr Trapattoni has asked them to do.”