The tie went to extra time and a controversial William Gallas goal enabled by captain Thierry Henry handling the ball twice made the score 2–1 on aggregate and France progressed to the World Cup at the Irish's expense.

After the second leg, Henry admitted to Irish defender Richard Dunne that he had illegally handled the ball in the build-up to Gallas' match-winning goal, which had been scored in extra time with 17 minutes remaining.

[7] In the draw, held in Zürich on 19 October, the eight teams were divided into two pots of four; France were seeded along with Greece, Portugal and Russia, while Ireland was unseeded, alongside Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Ukraine.

[8] The way the seeding process was handled led media reports and critics alleged at the time that UEFA altered the rules to benefit higher-profile teams such as France and Portugal.

[38] FAI chief executive John Delaney said "It is up to the people who govern the game now, if they really believe in the principles of fair play then step forward....If we had qualified in this manner, I wouldn't be happy"[12] The president of the (FFF) Jean-Pierre Escalettes said "You have to take a philosophical approach to this match.

[40] The FAI proposed a number of ways the incident could be prevented in future and, agreeing that the match could not be replayed, they instead also officially requested to be allowed to enter the World Cup as an unprecedented extra 33rd entrant.

[41] Blatter was of the opinion that if the Republic of Ireland were admitted as an extra entrant, Costa Rica would also have to be considered as well, having also been unfairly eliminated by an offside goal in a play-off against Uruguay.

[42][43][44][45] FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke had ruled it out on 1 December, one day before the meeting, clarifying that Blatter's comments regarding other teams had already shown the request was "impossible" and had "no hope" of being granted.

[47] The FAI's proposals included: no changes to competition formats mid-tournament (referring to the play off group seeding change), introduce video technology at the highest level, implement additional assistant referees behind the goal line for all international matches, introduce stronger sanctions for players who breach the Laws of the Game in a "match defining way", and issuing a statement that "FIFA does not condone breaches" of those Laws, referring to Sepp Blatter's previous statements of empathy with Henry.

[55] FIFA President Sepp Blatter confirmed on 30 November that the EGM would consider the use of AARs and goal-line technology in the 2010 World Cup, and changing the two-legged play-off qualification format, possibly in favour of a single game played at a neutral venue.

[57] In response to Blatter's comments at Soccerex and before the EGM, the FAI formally notified FIFA in writing that they were withdrawing their request to enter the World Cup as a 33rd team, and accordingly this matter was not considered.

[56] FIFA also called on the general secretaries of the Continental Federations to propose improvements to the format of the qualification and play-off phase of the World Cup competition, for submission by March 2010.

[65] Examples of FIFA disciplinary action taken against players for incidents missed by the referee based on video evidence include banning Mauro Tassotti for eight games for use of an elbow during the 1994 World Cup quarter-final, and banning Marco Materazzi for two games for his verbal provocation of Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final, resulting in the infamous headbutting incident.

Fair play must be maintained in our game[50][63] According to the Associated Press, the committee had the "authority to impose a one-match suspension on Henry, which would take effect at the start of the World Cup in June".

[75][76] After the FIFA EGM, John Delaney said, "In terms of the football side, this is the end of the matter", but that "the incident will linger long in the memory like Diego Maradona's handball.

[98] Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) praised Henry's decision to express his regrets over the affair, but declined to comment further, having not seen the incident.

"[16] Henry's former Arsenal and France teammate Emmanuel Petit wrote that "The feeling among the French public on Thursday morning was one of embarrassment – we didn't want to qualify in controversial circumstances, we wanted to beat Ireland by playing within the rules" and "Thierry's handball will not send out a good message", but he was of the opinion that this "very rare indiscretion" would not damage his reputation, explaining that "There is a referee on the pitch and if he didn't see that's not France's problem.

[17] Wenger believed Henry, who was one of the "fairest [players] I've managed", was being unfairly left to face criticism by France, and that the real issue was the lack of technology being in place.

[114] Le Monde noted the lack of any calls for a replay following the controversial penalty for handball that went in Ireland's favour, during their previous Group 8 qualifying game against Georgia on 11 February 2009.

[16] The Guardian's chief sportswriter Richard Williams wrote that the incident was worse than Maradona's foul, describing his handball as "a street kid's instinct", while Henry's was "a sophisticated man, and a much-decorated one.

[122] Tim Rich of The Independent urged for video refereeing, asserting that the Europa League trial of AAR's had "not been an unqualified success", citing a failure of intervention by the goal line official in a game between Fulham, in which the players had to intervene themselves to ensure the main referee, Belgian Paul Allaerts, identified the correct man to send off after a foul on Roma player John Arne Riise, after mistakenly identifying the offender as Brede Hangeland.

after their Bloodgate fake injury scandal, and the enhanced fortunes of Zinedine Zidane in spite of his head-butting of Marco Materazzi in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final.

[128] On 22 November, the Irish Independent claimed that the FFF had been willing to stage a replay and that FIFA would not have prevented it, but the offer had been blocked by the French manager Raymond Domenech.

[49] After the announcement that Henry would face no sanctions, Simon Rice of The Independent declared Henry had "got away with it", and compared his lack of punishment to nine other notable sporting incidents: Michael Schumacher (1994 Australian Grand Prix), Sir Alex Ferguson (against The Football Association generally), Graeme Smith (4th test, South Africa v England, 2010), Eduardo (diving against Celtic, 26 August 2009), Toni Schumacher (1982 World Cup semi-final), Trevor Chappell (the 1981 Underarm bowling incident), Andy Haden (Wales v New Zealand, 1978), Diego Maradona (1986 Hand of God goal) and Fred Lorz (1904 Olympics Men's Marathon).

[134] After the announcement, Agence France-Presse speculated that any discipliniary action for Henry would have presented an "unwelcome precedent" for FIFA, and any punishment would have been merely symbolic, given the lack of prior cases of such retrospective player sanctions.

[68] FIFA's subsequent decision to select referee Hansson as one of the 2010 World Cup officials was criticised by the Irish media, as well as UEFA president Michel Platini's comments that it would have been "great" if France and the Republic of Ireland had been drawn together for the 2012 European Championships.

[145] Irish rockstar Bono called on FIFA to do the noble thing, not act bureaucratically, and grant Ireland's request to be added to the World Cup as a 33rd entrant.

"[137] British author Roger Scruton said "one of the major justifications of sport in all its forms is that it teaches the virtues of fair play...Victory achieved by cheating leaves a foul taste in the mouth...and makes the whole thing as pointless to [the defeated team and its supporters] as it is to someone like me who has never quite experienced the allure of the game".

[153] Louth fans burst onto the pitch as the final whistle blew, chasing and physically assaulting the referee around the field, while a steward was knocked unconscious with a bottle during ugly scenes played out on live television.

The Evening Herald reviewer called it an "entertaining, tightly-packaged edition" of the show but also opined, "Where Scannal stumbled, however, was in its failure to go in with both feet on the cringe-inducing elephant in the room: John Delaney's embarrassing plea to Fifa boss, the odious Sepp Blatter, to let Ireland be "the 33rd team" at the World Cup".