Well UEFA and FIFA got their way. The seeding was the first diabolical situation which should never have been allowed especially as it was only decided late on. If they were to be the rules, they should have been stated at the start of the qualifiers not when it became apparant several "Big" nations may not qualify. And can it honestly be said that France will bring more to the World Cup, not just in performance but also participation from fans?
It took at least a minute to restart the game after the "goal" it would have taken one single look at a replay to rule it out, thirty seconds max.
Though Platini is the biggest opponent of video replays, I can't see this changing his mind.
The annoying this is that UEFA and FIFA claim credit for their marketing genius for all the money that comes in from sponsors and the huge revenue they also gain from TV rights. They forget that the only reason sponsors and TV networks pay so much is because of the huge market and investment by the fans. If we didn't watch or go to the matches they wouldn't have the nice lifestyle their jobs now afford.
True, they shouldn't always listen to the fans, if I had my way the refs would be replaced by scantily clad glamour models, but sometimes we're right and we're sick of seeing club and country matches settled by ref errors.
The FAI stand to lose millions as a result. Players have lost their last chance to play in the World Cup and South Africa is going to have to return the millions of additional kegs of beer it had on order and imported breakfast rolls.
Everyone makes mistakes, players, managers and the officials. Players can get dropped or sold if they make mistakes, managers can get the sack, but given the importance of some official mistakes we need video technology.
On a different note, this has to be marked as one of Dunphy's "jumping the shark" moments. While his cry of how everyone put the team down as not having the ability he forgets that he was one of the main protagonists of this view the last 18 months. In fact, he even went on a couple of minutes later to start picking out players who weren't good enough (players who actually did well).