Continuing the ominous rumblings after Ireland’s controversial play-off elimination at the hand of Henry, MSN reported yesterday that the FAI, Irish football’s governing body, has met with FIFA to discuss the possibility they be ‘reinstated to next year’s finals while also calling for the use of video technology in crucial matches’. In this statement, and therefore presumably in the Irish request itself, there is but one fatal flaw: it is impossible to be ‘reinstated’ to a competition into which you were never ‘instated’ in the first place. That is, they hadn’t quite made the finals at the time Henry’s left-hook consigned them to defeat.