FIFA President Sepp Blatter is considering eliminating all ties in group play at the next World Cup in Brazil.  FIFA is looking at sending the draws straight to penalty kicks or a sudden death overtime period to determine a winner.

This is a great idea to get these group games to be more entertaining.  At the World Cup this summer there were many 1st round matches that  were played with the mentality of  “not to lose.”  This change would open up the games and allow more attacking play to take place.

Blatter is on the right track on improving the sport looking at all options to garner more interest.  Getting rid of ties in bracket play is a great idea and should be put into place.

Leave a comment and tell us what you think about the change.

After finishing last in Group B with two losses and a tie, the President of Nigeria has banned his country from international competition for the next 2 years.  President Goodluck Jonathan endorsed the idea to completely dissolve the Nigerian Football Federation and start from scratch.

I’m not sure how exactly FIFA will respond to this as the organization is completely against governments getting involved with their national soccer teams.  For Nigeria’s sake this looks like the only thing they could have done to get control of their program.  I do however question the 2 year ban as that could be used as time to get comfortable with the new direction they are going in.

Here is a great article by Paul Okolo at Bloomberg.com-Nigeria Withdraws From Soccer Events for Two Years After Cup Performance

FIFA has just released more accommodations for the World Cup this summer in South Africa.  FIFA’s travel agent for the world cup Match, is struggling to fill up rooms.  The company just released another 300,000 rooms for the tournament.  It is becoming extremely difficult for foreigners to travel to this prestigious event.  With the economy still down  the general public is not able to spend the amount of money to make the trip.  Also, there are some major crime concerns with South Africa that are contributing to the lack of ticket sales.

It is official. Today, Ireland was denied by FIFA in their efforts to replay the match which sent France to the World Cup on a controversial hand ball by Thierry Henry. This was expected coming from FIFA, seeing that France was the ideal team to advance to the World Cup in their minds.

FIFA’s statement reads: “FIFA has today, 20 November 2009, replied to the request made by the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) to replay the 2010 FIFA World Cup play-off match held on 18 November 2009 between France and the Republic of Ireland in Paris. The result of the match cannot be changed and the match cannot be replayed. As is clearly mentioned in the Laws of the Game, during matches, decisions are taken by the referee and these decisions are final.”

Even Thierry Henry has come out and stated that a replay would be in everyone’s best interest. That is saying a lot for a player to come out and admit that he was wrong. He does still emphasize that it was truly an “instinctive reaction.” Henry has always been a classy player on the pitch throughout his illustrious career, and followed suit in this situation.