Arsenal legend and Republic of Ireland assistant manager Liam Brady has launched a scathing attack on FIFA president Sepp Blatter for the way he has handled the infamous Thierry Henry handball incident.

Brady referred to Blatter as an embarrassment to the organisation for the way he has behaved in the last fortnight since the controversial incident which saw France reach the World Cup finals at the expense of Ireland.

The verbal attack came after FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke had confirmed that Ireland's request to be the 33rd team at next summer's finals had been denied, though the official rejection is due to be announced on Wednesday.

"I think my country deserves more recognition from Blatter," Brady was quoted as saying by SportsProMedia.com. "He has currently ignored most of the controversial things that went on that evening.

"He never had anything to say about that at all, like Henry's behaviour after scoring the goal and how that stands within his campaign to have fair play within the game.

"Henry celebrates as if he’s done nothing wrong. Is that fair play? Hardly. But Mr Blatter chose to talk about the request to be considered as the 33rd team.

"We [the Football Association of Ireland] asked because we wanted to have them respond in a measured way, and see what they had to say.

"After all, Mr. Blatter was responsible for the [match] official. He didn't say anything about the appalling mistake the official made to miss a blatant handball."