Yesterday the final qualification matches for next summer’s World Cup were played. Today the politicians are getting involved. France squeaked by Ireland thanks to an obviously illegal overtime goal that the referees wrongly allowed. Today, Irish parliament debated the issue, the Irish justice minister demanded a replay and the Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said he would “have a chat about it” with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.
Meanwhile in Khartoum, Egypt and Algeria battled for the last qualification spot from Africa. Young Egyptians attacked the Algerian team bus and injured several players during their meeting on the weekend in Cairo. Egypt accused the Algerians of staging the attack and after losing the decisive match in Sudan, withdrew its ambassador to Algeria over attacks on Egyptian supporters. I don’t quite think we have another soccer war in the making but interesting nonetheless. And the World Cup hasn’t even started!