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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.

Following their 2-1 controversial loss in World Cup qualifying to France, Ireland’s soccer federation is asking FIFA for a replay of the match. France qualified for the World Cup after a blunder of errors by the referees allowed France to go up 2-1 in the first overtime session.

Replay of the goal clearly showed two French players in an offside position and as Thierry Henry attempted to trap the ball he clearly used his hand before crossing it into William Gallas to head home the winner.

Henry has since admitted to using his hand to trap the ball but said it was clearly out of instinct and not done intentionally. Even with Henry’s admission to the hand ball it will be almost impossible to replay the match.

In order to replay the match France would have to admit fault to the incident and agree to replay the match. This will surely not happen.

Back in 2005 FIFA did allow a replay in a World Cup Qualifier between Uzbekistan and Bahrain following a horrible mistake made by the referee. Ireland officials know it will be very hard to replay this match so they are insisting that replay be made available for the future if something like this happens again.

This incident is not going away anytime soon. The amount of time and effort given by these countries to qualify for the World Cup every four years is astronomical. Ireland was cheated out of a spot in the biggest stage in the world and we don’t see them going away without a fight.