Third round weekend delivers as expected

It proved to be an interesting FA Cup third round weekend (as it so often is), from Paolo Di Canio's Swindon Town knocking out Premier League Wigan Athletic to Thierry Henry making a dream comeback for Arsenal, scoring the winner against Leeds United.

The Manchester derby didn't disappoint as we had the return of Paul Scholes, a dubious sending-off of Vincent Kompany as United roared into a 3-0 lead, and a stirring effort to peg United back from City - yet the half-time pundits on both ITV and Sky would have had City "accept and settle for the 3-0 defeat so that it wouldn't get any worse"! A pathetic assessment, and one that would no doubt have had any City fans growling with anger.

Crawley Town pulled off a giant-killing, by dumping Bristol City out of the cup, and Macclesfield Town (2-2 with Bolton Wanderers) and MK Dons (1-1 with QPR) came close and get a second chance.

As for Henry - fair play to him, and will be interesting to see if he can deliver in the Premier League, but from a Leeds United's fan's perspective, the overwhelmingly biased coverage by ESPN on Monday night was little short of disgraceful.

Heskey goes but nothing will change

Emile Heskey announced his retirement from international football yesterday. That's a bit of a shame for him as it was the only place he got a game - Aston Villa don't pick him! On the same day Thierry Henri announced his retirement from French international football. I wondered who will be more fondly remembered by their compatriots.

The sad thing for poor Emile is that over the last few years England have not been able to find anyone else who is definitely and comprehensively superior. Fabio Capello obviously thought a big target man would bring out the best in Wayne Rooney (it didn't), and equally obviously felt that Peter Crouch was not that man. It's a shame Crouch got so little playing time at the Wolrd Cup as his scoring record does stack up, and a goal against either United States or Algeria might have brought a very different outcome to England's campaign.

However, it would have only disguised the harsh truth - that England are not good enough, the system and structure of the game in England is not suited to producing a competitive international team at the top level, and that something needs to be done urgently. Nevertheless, nothing will be done because the FA have confirmed Capello will carry on and they (wrongly) think that having a big name manager is the cure for all the rotten ills of the English game.

None of this is Emile Heskey's fault.

Ireland look for 33rd place in the World Cup

The Football Association of Ireland yesterday confirmed that it had asked FIFA if the Republic of Ireland could be found a place in the World Cup in South Africa next year. A statement on its website read:

"The Football Association of Ireland today (November 30) 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 goal line 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."

Sepp Blatter said: "I will bring it to the attention of the Executive Committee." The committee meets on Wednesay prior to Friday's World Cup tournament draw.

Any action to accommodate Ireland would be an astonishing move. The precedent would leave tournaments open to all sorts of claims and counter-claims in the future.

Blatter pointed out that Costa Rica  also believe they were unfairly denied a place in the finals. In their case it was because of an offside goal from Uruguay, so they would also have to be acknowledged if extra places are discussed.

It is sad that Ireland missed out because of Henry's cheating and officials that missed the offence, but moves to change tournament set-ups must be avoided. The real way forward is to put in place systems which avoid such errors in the future.

How will the FIFA EGM handle Henry?

Sepp Blatter has called an Emergency General Meeting of FIFA's executive committee for next Wednesday (2 December). It will be held in South Africa and precedes the World Cup final tournament draw on Friday 4 December.

Although they may discuss Henry's handball there is no chance of a replay. They have stated this already, and the replay route is fraught with danger. It is also unlikely that they will bring in video replays, though it may get discussed. The most likely outcome of any discussion of Henry's misdemeanour will be the introduction of two more assistant referees behind the goal line, as are being used in UEFA's Europa Cup this season.

It is also likely that FIFA will try to take the heat out of the situation by denying that the meeting is solely about the incident in the France v Republic of Ireland game. They will also be discussing the match fixing investigation revealed in Germany last week, but above all they're likely to say it's a meeting about seedings for the World Cup. We shall see.

Let's hope they can avoid controversy in the World Cup seedings, but the most outrageous seeding will be host South Africa (currently 85th in the World, and 31st of the 32 qualifiers) who will be in the top pot of seeds.

World Cup 2010 qualifiers

And so the final six qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup were decided on Wednesday, and they were not without controversy.

Republic of Ireland were denied by the hand of Henry, a 1-1 draw putting France unjustly through. Irish calls for a replay will be ignored by FIFA - and they should be, otherwise, where would it end? It doesn't stop it being a dismal failure by the officials to spot a double handball AND an offside.

Slovenia knocked out Russia on the away goals rule, winning 1-0 at home, but their late goal in the 2-1 defeat in Russia last Saturday proved crucial.

Portugal beat Bosnia Herzegovina 1-0 to win 2-0 on aggregate.

Greece had an excellent 1-0 in Ukraine after the first leg goalless draw.

In a fiery, bad-tempered African encounter Algeria beat Egypt 1-0 to qualify.

And finally Uruguay drew 1-1 at home with Costa Rica to win 3-2 on aggregate.

So, the 32 qualifiers (with there current FIFA ranking in brackets) are:

Brazil (1)
Spain (2)
Holland (3)
Italy (4)
Germany (5)
Argentina (6)
England (7)
France (9)
Portugal (10)
United States (11)
Switzerland (13)
Cameroon (14)
Greece (16)
Chile (17)
Mexico (18)
Ivory Coast (19)
Serbia (20)
Paraguay (21)
Australia (24)
Uruguay (25)
Denmark (27)
Algeria (29)
Nigeria (32)
Slovakia (33)
Honduras (35)
Ghana (38)
Japan (40)
South Korea (48)
Slovenia (49)
New Zealand (83)
South Africa (85)
North Korea (91)

High rankers to miss out were Croatia (8), Russia (12) and Czech Republic (15).

Onward to the draw on 4 December.

Irish cheated out of place in World Cup finals

Cheating. There's no other word for it. Thierry Henry handled the ball not once, but twice, before crossing for William Gallas to head home the goal that put France through to the World Cup finals and knocked out the Republic of Ireland.

Henry said: "I will be honest: it was a handball, but I'm not the referee."

Not only should the goal have been ruled out for the handballs, but there was also a missed offside call from the free-kick that led to the goal. Although he missed the ball, Sebastien Squillaci went to jump for the ball with two Irish players, and he was in an offside position when the kick was taken.

The Swedish referee Martin Hansson and his assistant both missed all three offences.

It was very sad for the Irish, but it is interesting that they refused to blame Henri.

Kevin Doyle said: "You do not blame the player if he can get away with it, it is nearly a natural reaction."

Manager Giovanni Trapattoni said: "The referee should have asked Henry, I'm sure he would have admitted there was a handball."

Richard Dunne said: "Henry admitted afterwards he handled it, but it doesn't make me feel any better. We were cheated."

With the game already in extra time, a 1-0 win for the Irish would have taken the game into a penatly shoot-out.