FIFA said Thursday it had receieved a letter from the Irish Football Association (FAI) requesting a replay of their controversial World Cup qualifying playoff against France.
However, world football's ruling body seemed to indicate there could be little chance of granting that request.
"We've received the letter from the Irish federation," a FIFA spokesman told AFP, although he was unable to say when any decision would be made.
After beating the Republic of Ireland 1-0 in Dublin, France levelled the second leg in Paris 1-1 in extra time to qualify for the World Cup finals with Ireland crashing out.
The match was tinged with controversy, however, as France captain Thierry Henry used his hand to stop the ball going out of play before passing to William Gallas to head the goal which gave France a 2-1 win on aggregate.
What was a sporting now has now turned political, with the Irish Prime Minister lending his weight to calls for a replay -- and French Prime Minister Francois Fillon responding by saying governements should avoid interfering.
Earlier Thursday the FAI said in a statement: "The blatantly incorrect decision by the referee to award the goal has damaged the integrity of the sport.
"We now call on FIFA, as the world governing body for our sport, to organise for this match to be replayed."
The Irish football body pointed to a precedent: a FIFA decision in 2005 to invalidate the result of a World Cup qualification match between Ukbekistan and Bahrain on the basis of "a technical error by the referee of the match".
In that case an Uzbeki player had infringed the rules by entering the Bahrain defensive area while a penalty was being taken by one of his teammates.
Instead of having the penalty re-taken, the match referee gave an indirect free kick to Bahrain.
The FAI said it hoped FIFA would "act in a similar fashion so that the standards of fair play and integrity can be protected".
However when asked about such a precedent FIFA told AFP: "It's a very different. (During the Bahrain v Uzbekistan match), the referee saw the incident in question and simply failed to apply the proper rules.
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