Thierry Henry disciplinary hearing by FIFA

blatterFifa president Joseph Blatter has announced on Wednesday that there will be no 5th referee or any type of video technology used in the World Cup 2010 South Africa.

However Joseph Blatter did say that FIFA will be investigating the France captain and Barcelona striker Thierry Henry over the handball incident that directly led to a goal by William Gallas which made France go through to the World Cup 2010 in South Africa.

Blatter told a news conference in Cape Town after an extraordinary meeting of FIFA’s executive committee. ‘The disciplinary will open a case on the behaviour of the player Thierry Henry,’

Joseph Blatter did not give any details of the punishment Thierry Henry will get if found guilty by FIFA’s disciplinary body. The same disciplinary body will be investigating the violent clashes in the African play-off between Egypt and Algeria fans and footballers.

Blatter said in the news conference that ‘it is time now to open the file for technology’. However he also said FIFA is only willing to experiment with the 5th official in the Europa League and will assess the future of this after feed back of whether it was successful or not.

‘For the World Cup 2010, there is no change in refereeing,’ he said. ‘This is for 2010 definite, it will not be discussed.’

The 73-year-old pointed out that ‘such experiments’ with a fifth official had not yet been piloted anywhere else in the world.

‘An experiment must be carried out, and then it must first be carried out globally before it can be implemented at a World Cup,’ said Blatter.

Illegal betting was also discussed at the meeting, with Blatter commenting that syndicates were ‘taking football as a hostage’ and that FIFA was teaming up with Interpol to tackle the problem.

‘The partner will be Interpol,’ said Blatter. ‘Interpol will create an international task force to tackle illegal betting.’

Interpol will look at how it can pool its knowledge with the early warning systems put in place by FIFA and UEFA, as well as Germany’s ‘Radar’ programme.

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