Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba has been given clearance to wear a protective cast on his broken right arm in Tuesday's game against Portugal. Football's world governing body Fifa made the decision prior to the first Group G match of the World Cup. The Chelsea striker's involvement in South Africa had been in doubt after suffering the injury in a friendly against Japan on 4 June. Fifa said that Tuesday's referee Jorge Larrionda had permitted the cast. The organisation's head of media Nicolas Maingot added: "The cast has been seen by the Portuguese delegation at Monday's match co-ordination meeting." "Everybody knows what Drogba is for Chelsea and for us - he's a great player," said Ivory Coast coach Sven-Goran Eriksson. He added: "We have a lot of good players who are strong and have good technique. "We're in a difficult group with Portugal, Brazil and North Korea, but the boys are working very hard." The 32-year-old required surgery after fracturing his arm in Sion, Switzerland, in a collision with Japan defender Marcus Tulio Tanaka - three minutes after the forward had opened the scoring with a 13th-minute deflected free-kick. Afterwards, Eriksson refused to blame Tanaka for the incident. "It was unlucky," the 62-year-old former England boss said at the time. "It wasn't bad or stupid. He didn't want to hurt anyone. Football is a game of contact." At the 1970 World Cup, Germany defender Franz Beckenbauer wore a sling in the semi-final against Italy having dislocated his shoulder during the match, while England striker Gary Lineker sported a cast to protect a broken wrist during the 1986 competition.
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