As part of our weekly Saturday series revisiting historic World Cups, this week we reflected on the 1966 tournament.

Before we got stuck into the action, we took a moment to reflect on Ireland's failure to qualify.

Daniel McDonnell from the Irish Independent described the end of the qualifying campaign as, "One of the great Irish football scandals."

(L-R) England's Martin Peters, George Cohen, Jack Charlton, Bobby Moore, Ray Wilson and Bobby Charlton parade the Jules Rimet trophy around Wembley following their 4-2 victory

Ireland's performances left them with a play-off against Spain for a spot at the World Cup.

Having faced-off in the group stage, Ireland had beaten Spain 1-0 after a goalkeeping mistake helped The Boys in Green to win, in front of a packed Dalymount Park.

They went on to lose 4-1 in the return away encounter.

The match was to be fixed for a neutral venue, with Arsenal's home, London's Highbury stadium, the most likely location.

However, Dan told Off The Ball why the match did not happen in England:

"The FAI, basically, did a deal with the Spanish. If the game was played in Paris, which was Spain's preference, the FAI would get to keep the gate receipts and have their expenses covered. So the FAI soldout."

He added that, "There were no Irish flags in-sight," when the teams squared-off in the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir. This was because the French capital has seen an influx of Spaniards during Franco's on-going reign - which meant their fans ruled the terraces.

A 1-0 defeat scuppered Ireland's World Cup dreams.

"They lost, they [the FAI] got the money but they lost the opportunity. That in itself, it's viewed as an early insight into the FAI's tendency to self-destruct," McDonnell concluded.

30 March 1977; Republic of Ireland captain John Giles, right, with France captain Christian Lopez and referee Mr. Linmayer, Austria, ahead of the game. World Cup Qualifier, Republic of Ireland v France, Lansdowne Road, Dublin. Picture credit: Connolly Collection / SPORTSFILE

Johnny Giles featured on that team and discussed the playoff with OTB back in 2015.

He recalled that the Irish side of the day had talented players, but was lacking in confidence. However, they fancied their chances against Spain, having beaten them in Dublin.

"They beat us 1-0 in a tight game because our mindset going into them was that if we played them, we had a bit of a chance against them... But it was too late. We should have been saying that before the [previous] match."

Giles told Off The Ball that the players were left with plenty of 'what ifs' as they watched the 1966 World Cup play out across England.

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