The man with the giggle-inducing name, Sepp Blatter, remains head of FIFA today – the group who are overseeing the ongoing disaster that is the World Cup.

That’s perhaps the biggest surprise of the tournament so far.

Loud, obnoxious and arrogant, the most powerful man in the world’s most popular sport has long poopooed any detractors of soccer as just being nothing less than “ignorant.”

Yet there he was on Tuesday finally admitting that there was a problem with the game that can be solved simply using existing technology.

It wasn’t the 20 years of in-his-face evidence previous to this WC that convinced him. It’s the international outrage that has mutated his sport’s showcase into nothing less than a joke.

It’s been brewing since the opening game, but Saturday put an end to Blatter’s Luddite ways for good.

England’s Frank Lampard scored to tie Germany 2-2, but the goal was not counted because the referee and his assistants missed it going in.

They were all blinking at the same time or something, but they didn’t see what everyone else say – the ball bouncing in, and then out of the net. The German goalie also played a part, acting like it never crossed the line, but that’s another column (about soccer’s complete lack of sportsmanship). The blown call shook up England and they went on to lose the match 4-1. FIFA officials, who have dealt with a series of blown calls since the first touch, refused to comment.

Instead, they fell back on their old tried, tested and true line that soccer isn’t a North American sport, and instant replay wasn’t needed as it would take the human element out of the game and make it worse.

Which is, of course, insane.

Not only would instant replay save this World Cup, it would help soccer in so many other ways as well.

There are still North American purists out there who insist that instant replay has hurt the NFL, the NBA, the NHL and MLB – but those are the same “get off my lawn” folks who yell about everything. Or they are John McCain.

Nope – it’s been proven that our sports have improved immeasurably when you take the concept of blatant human error out of them.

FIFA’s position has long been that referee errors are a part of the game – and part of what makes their game great.

Seriously. You can look it up.

To us who like to drop a dime or two on a game now and then this might appear to be, oh, I don’t know, idiotic. But that’s they way they wanted it.

Until now that is.

On Tuesday Blatter said, “It is obvious that after the experiences so far at this World Cup it would be a nonsense not to re-open the file on goal-line technology.”

But then he added, “We cannot change anything with 10 games to go in the World Cup.”

Hey, Sepp, why friggin’ not?

In a few weeks, Brazil will play Argentina in the final. Imagine what would happen if a game-winning goal by Messi was seen by a billion people around the world, except the only one guy who really counted, the referee?

Quite literally, there would be blood running in the streets.

Nope – the time to change is now.

And it’s not exactly a complex problem to solve.

The ref on Saturday, for example, could have simply looked up and seen the replay of the Lampard goal on the Jumbotron, but so studiously wary of technology was he, he deliberately kept his head down.

It’s simple. New rule – look the hell up!

In the future they can add in the fancy bells in whistles like what the NHL uses, putting a chip in the ball that lights up a lamp when the thing crosses the goal line, but for now, it’s as easy as watching it on TV in hi-def.

Which every stadium has.

But no.

Instead, FIFA has to think about it because… well, there’s no real reason why it’s just what they do.

It will be in July before anything happens at all. If they are smart they will eliminate the arbitrary nature of their officiating, which as a result would cause many of the blemishes on the game to fall away. No more accusations of corruption. No more willy-nilly calls of offside’s that have cost teams a dozen goals thus far, and at least two teams clear wins.

To save face that is really the least they should do.

But instead, they will do the very least.