FIFA boss Sepp Blatter on Monday insisted that he had not intended to criticise the Italian team or their tactics after he was quoted as saying that Australia should have played in the quarter-finals of the World Cup in Germany instead of eventual champions Italy.

Blatter has also denied making comments to the Australian media disparaging World Cup winners Italy for their tactics in the last 16 round game against Australia.

However in the television interview with SBS Television of Sydney on Sunday, Blatter had said referees at this year's cup finals “were not at their best”.

“I think there was too much cheating on the players' side,” Blatter said in the interview. “I agree with them and I would like to apologise to our fans in Australia. The Socceroos should have gone into the quarter-finals in place of Italy... you go into extra time and you are 11 against 10. But that is presumptuous.”

Blatter has since defended himself, saying: “With my statement I simply wanted to pay credit to the Socceroos as well because they played a great match and their lack of experience did not permit them to go to extra-time,” he said.

The FIFA statement also quoted Les Murray, the editorial supervisor of SBS Sport, as saying that at no time in it did Blatter make any “inappropriate comment” about the Italy v Australia match.

“The topic as to whether the controversial penalty kick awarded to Italy in the last moments of the game was justified or not never even came up during our interview,” Murray said.

It may be recalled that Australia's players and fans were outraged when Spanish referee Luis Medina Cantalejo awarded Italy a penalty in the fifth minute of stoppage time of their quarter-final after Lucas Neill had brought down Fabio Grosso.

One can also argue on the nature of foul as it appeared that Grosso had play-acted when he was fouled, but the referee thought otherwise and penalised Australia, who looked the sharper of the two sides. Blatter also said the antics of players was the real problem for the game.

Substitute Francesco Totti converted the penalty to give 10-man Italy a dramatic 1-0 win and a place in the World Cup quarter-finals.

Debate raged over the decision and football's world governing body FIFA was accused of not addressing the problem of both diving and faking injuries in the world game.

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