FIFA Emergency Meeting RE Play Off Irregularties

[Stuttgart88]

Thanks for that Junior.

Wrt being active - doesn't trying to play the ball make you active? It doesn't matter whether you play it or not as far as I understand. Schuilacci(?) definitely was active. He couldn't not have been unless he was retreating or standing idly by.

[Junior]

That would be my take on it also. Definitely active and therefore offside. Though a very tight call and I wouldnt be looking to hang the linesman for not calling it. However missing that and the double handball is unforgiveable!!!

[osarusan]

I don't think it proves anything.

It simply shows he may have seen it.

Right, i think that there is this argument that the ball being visible to the linesman at the moment Henry handballed it means he must have seen it but chose not to do anything about.
I agree with Stuttgart that it was simply poor on the part of the officials, rather than biased.

[Emmet7]

tight call but offside all the same. was mentioned elsewhere (this thread or another) that once an offside player makes an attempt to go for the ball he is then deemed to be interferring

why on earth was that piece of music attached to the clip? its the first laugh i've gotten out of watching footage of that incident though!

From what I saw on tv of the incident, I don't think the offside player even bothered to go for the ball. He seemed more interested in going for Dunne and obstructing him from attacking the ball.

To be honest the whole goal was a freak one in a million incident.

The ref got himself into the worst possible position for a freekick from that position, maybe he was tired and didn't fancy going deep into the penalty area and then running up the field again after the clearance. But he should have had a far better view of it, I don't think he was even in the box.

Fair enough refs are told to stand at the edge of the box or thereabouts for corners. But this wasn't a corner. He couldn't see half the players in the box so it was terrible positioning.

A player returned from offside, didn't touch the ball or appear to interfere but was definitely obstructing Dunne. That's a real grey area.

The linesman didn't see a handball probably because he was looking at the offside guy.

Somehow I think the French knew what they were doing. They committed about 3 or 4 fouls in the box and probably had something like that planned.

I doubt Henry cared much. A lot of players try to take advantage if the ref doesn't see something. But that definitely doesn't make it right or acceptable or not foul play just because the ref didn't see it.