Blatter apologise to Frank Lampard's disallowed goal

Blatter apologise to Frank Lampard's disallowed goal

England were denied an obvious equaliser as they battled to stem the tide against Germany in the last 16 of the World Cup.


With the Three Lions trailing 2-1, Lampard blasted in a long-range effort which crashed off the bar and over the line before bouncing back out.






TV replays later showed it was clearly a goal but play continued and Fabio Capello's men went on to suffer a humiliating 4-1 defeat.

The incident has led to renewed goals for goal-line technology and Blatter admits world football's governing body will look into the matter.

He said: "It is obvious that after the experience so far in this World Cup it would be a nonsense to not reopen the file of technology at the business meeting of the International FA Board (IFAB) in July.

"Personally I deplore it when you see evident referee mistakes but it's not the end of a competition or the end of football, this can happen.

"The only thing I can do is yesterday I have spoken to the two federations — England and Mexico — directly concerned by referees mistakes.

"I have expressed to them apologies and I understand they are not happy and that people are criticising.

And Blatter added: "It happened in 1966 and then 44 years later — though it was not quite the same.

"I apologised to England and Mexico. The English said 'thank you' and accepted that you can win some and you lose some, while the Mexicans bowed their head and accepted it."

Despite the ongoing debate about bringing the beautiful game in line with other sports using technology to rule on controversial decisions, Blatter insists the introduction of video replays is not an option.
He said: "The only principle we are going to bring back for discussion is goal-line technology.

"Football is a game that never stops and the moment there was a discussion if the ball was in or out, or there was a goalscoring opportunity, do we give a possibility to a team to call for replays once or twice like in tennis?
"For situations like the Mexico game you don't need technology."

Blatter also revealed that FIFA would launch a new drive to improve refereeing standards at the top level later this year.
He said: "We will come out with a new model in November on how to improve high-level referees.


"We will start with a new concept of how to improve match control.
"I cannot disclose more of what we are doing but something has to be changed."

From: www.thesun.co.uk