FIFA have rejected claims that the incident which saw French skipper Zinedine Zidane sent off in the World Cup final against Italy was only seen by the fourth official using a television replay. Zidane was red carded in extra time following a verbal raw with Marco Materazzi that ended up with the French star head-butting the Italy defender. FIFA rulings decide against using T.V replays in taking any games' decisions, but France coach Raymond Domenech as well as striker Thierry Henry insisted that the incident was only spotted after the fourth official saw it on his monitor. "This was definitely not video evidence," FIFA spokesman Andreas Herren told BBC Sport on Monday. "The fourth official saw it as it happened on the pitch and directly advised the referee through the headset and the referee took action, full stop," Herren added. FIFA''s replies come after Domenech attacked the referee confirming that the he was influenced to send off Zidane, with Henry echoing his coach's statements. "The referee saw nothing, the assistant referee saw nothing and then we have the fourth official seeing the video replay and telling the referee," Domenech said following the game. "I don't know what happened between Zidane and Materazzi, but I'm sure that neither the referee nor his assistant saw what happened," Henry said. Zidane who earlier announced his retirement from professional football had to settle for such ending after a glorious career where he was named World player of the year three times as well as being crowned as World and European champion with France.
