Blatter wants Fifa to review Taylor's three-match ban for foul
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Your support makes all the difference.Martin Taylor's infamous foul on the Arsenal striker Eduardo is to be investigated by Fifa to see whether the Birmingham defender's three-match ban should extended.
The president of football's world governing body, Sepp Blatter, is to ask the Football Association to send them the file on the challenge in which the Brazilian-born Croatian was left with a badly broken leg and dislocated ankle. Blatter said Fifa wanted to be sure the correct sanction had been applied. Speaking in Gleneagles after the annual meeting of the International FA Board, the game's lawmaking body, he said, "We have the right to ask national associations to give us the file and if we, the authorities, feel it [the suspension] is not enough, then we will come back on that."
He added: "I told the International Board that a player who is deliberately attacking another player and tries to demolish him should be banned, and not only for three matches but temporarily banned or a life ban depending on the severity of the attack. Why the hell should footballers demolish each other?"
Meanwhile, Blatter defended the decision to scrap goal-line technology, claiming that the systems being tested were too complicated and costly. The IFAB decided to halt trials being developed by Hawk-Eye with a microchipped ball and push ahead with a Michel Platini-inspired idea of having two extra assistant referees standing behind each goal-line.
"It is not a change of heart," said Blatter, an ally of Platini, the Uefa president. "We have identified very clearly how complicated both systems are. After three years of tests we have had no conclusive results so we have decided to stop it and put it on ice."
Among other matters addressed in his briefing, Blatter spelled out his intention to continue to oppose the Premier League's so-called 39th game. The proposal is being reviewed after widespread opposition, but Blatter said he would still bring the issue to the attention of Fifa's executive committee this Friday. "The Premier League are the best-organised league with the most money coming in, but when you are so rich you should share with the other components of football and not try to get more."
Blatter also accepted the decision of the Scottish FA not to participate in any combined team at the 2012 London Olympics, admitting it was an understandable position given each of the four home nations' individual identity. And he reiterated that there was a possibility of some matches at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa being played on artificial pitches.
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