Up to date | Saturday | nine:38 a.m. Worldwide relations continued to undergo on Friday in the reverberations about two soccer matches played on Wednesday.
In Egypt, the BBC reports that 35 Egyptian protesters were injured in violent clashes with police officers guarding the besieged Algerian Embassy. Egypt had currently recalled its ambassador to Algeria to discuss anti-Egyptian rioting in Algiers this week, which in flip was sparked by a noted attack on Algerian soccer gamers final week in Cairo. Egyptians had also gathered at the embassy in Cairo on Thursday after reports that followers of their nationwide group had been attacked by Algerians immediately after a game in between the nations on Wednesday — which the Algerians won, 1-0.
According to the BBC, Alaa Mubarak, whose father is Egypt’s president, fanned the flames on Friday in “a rare public statement calling for a ‘tough stance’ to be taken against Algeria.” The BBC added that the president’s son said on Egyptian television, “When you insult my dignity… I will beat you around the head.”
One of the Egyptian protesters, holding a sign calling for the expulsion of the Algerian ambassador, told Agence France-Presse: “We should treat Algeria like any country that has declared war on us.”
Omar Abdel Hamid,
Office 2010 Home And Student X86, an Egyptian shopkeeper near the Algerian embassy in Cairo, told the Egyptian Web site Bikya Masr that he was shocked by this response by some compatriots:
They go and try to destroy an embassy, shops and cars? It is wrong and this is not what football is about. We all wanted to see Egypt while in the World Cup, but they lost. What are you going to do? Go and destroy our shops and our cars? I can’t believe it.
The two governments seem to be doing little to calm the tensions. According to a report from Reuters, following the Egyptian government complained about Algerian followers trashing the Algiers headquarters of the Egyptian phone company Djezzy this week — a melee that was apparently captured in this video posted on YouTube — “Algerian tax authorities hit Djezzy with a $596.6 million bill for outstanding taxes.”
Meanwhile the leaders of France and Ireland had a difficult conversation of their own on Thursday. According to a report from France 24, during a European Union summit meeting the Irish prime minister, Brian Cowen, suggested to the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, that the national teams of the two countries should replay their match. The contested match had been decided on Wednesday by a goal that the captain of the French team admits he set up by illegally using his hand. France 24 reported, “Sarkozy said he was sympathetic to Ireland’s position, but could not support Cowen’s call for restaging the game.”
As my colleague Jack Bell noted, soccer’s governing body on Friday denied an official request from your Irish for a replay. Later on Friday, The Associated Press reported that Thierry Henry, the French player and team captain who admitted right after the game that he had used his hand told the press, “Of course the fairest solution would be to replay the game, but it is not in my control.”
Mr. Henry, who said, “I have never denied that the ball was controlled with my hand,” added: “I am not a cheat and never have been. It was an instinctive reaction to a ball that was coming extremely fast in a crowded penalty area.”
The Irish defeat has inspired no riots in Dublin, but some interesting responses have come from Irish fans online — including an entrancing loop of the video evidence of the foul, set to dance music. This further conventional video report makes the infraction quite clear:
One surprising result of watching video of the play is that it makes clear that the French player’s action, while clearly against the rules of the game,
Office 2007 Pro Plus Keygen, was admirably skillful. Oddly, there is one game in which such a subtle tap of the ball with the hand, followed by a pass to an open teammate flicked off the outside of the boot, would be considered a brilliant and perfectly legal play: Gaelic football. Given the controversy about this goal, it is worth noting that another difference in between soccer and Gaelic football is that the Irish sport assigns two officials to either side of each goal, to make sure that only legitimate scores are counted.
Around the Guardian’s “Football Weekly” podcast,
Office Pro Plus 2010 Activation, two Irish journalists reflected about the result in a philosophical manner that suggests the French Embassy in Dublin is unlikely to become a target. Barry Glendenning said that while the Irish “had been shafted by a goal that should not have already been allowed,” he added: “I think a lot of Irish people are sort of reveling in this misfortune. You know, ‘Paddy’s always been under the yoke of oppression…’ and he likes a good whinge. We’ll get through it.” (He had also written during the match: “It’s true what they say. Never mind the disappointment, it’s the hope that kills you.”)
Another Irish journalist, Paul Doyle, had this to say about the bright side of being cheated out of victory:
If there’s one good thing that came out of it, and comes out of the continued refusal to use [video]technology, it’s the fact that… blatant injustices in something that’s relatively trivial like football teach you to question authority in other domains. So its a good lesson for the kids. That’s what I was telling my son, as he was crying into his supper previous night.
Later on Friday, Roy Keane, a former star of the Irish staff who is now a manager in England,
Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2007 Activation, told reporters that he has been “amazed with the commotion” and said that “we’ve been robbed” was “the usual” reaction of the Irish football association to a loss. He added that Ireland’s gamers should have prevented the ball from even reaching Thierry Henry, who has been one of the most dangerous attacking gamers during the game for most of the past decade. For good measure he noted that the Irish staff had recently benefited from a blown call in another match that helped them secure a win. Just after that game, Mr. Keane noted, no Irish official complained about the referee’s actions, or offered to replay the game with the interest of fairness.
For more on this story, read my colleague Michael Slackman’s take on it fromCairo: “This Time, Egyptian Riot Above Soccer,
Microsoft Office 2007 Pro Keygen, Not Bread .”
Update | Saturday | 9:38 a.m. Thanks to the French reader in Dublin who pointed out that hundreds of Irish soccer followers are planning to protest outside the French embassy in Dublin on Saturday. It still seems unlikely that it will be the target of any violence though. On Friday The Irish Times noted that the Irish passion for protest was nothing compared to that of the Egyptians:
About 30 soccer followers gathered in front of the French embassy today to call for a rematch of Ireland’s disputed World Cup playoff against France.
Protesters arrived on a double decker bus dressed in green with a frog mascot. They were chanting: “What do we want? We want a rematch! When do we want it? We want it now!” The protest lasted about an hour through lunchtime.
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