AOB: Hypocrites hammer Henry for hand ball

I bet Thierry Henry is feeling thoroughly ashamed of himself this morning.

As he sits in the kitchen of his multi-million pound mansion, being served an expresso and a croissant by his glamorous girlfriend, and contemplates the prospect of appearing at a fourth successive world cup, I'm sure he is overwhelmed with grief that his blatant cheating has denied us the chance to see such footballing luminaries as Glenn Whelan and Darren Gibson at the finals in South Africa next year. Shame on you Thierry, shame on you.



Admitedly his indescretion in the France versus Ireland game was a fairly obvious one, but judging the hysterical reaction today you'd think he'd murdered Princess Diana then drowned a litter of puppies for good measure.

It was amusing watching Tony Cascarino getting more and more angry on Sky Sports News last night, and today he has channeled his anger into column form on the Times website: "Henry speaks so eloquently, but to me now he’ll always be insincere, a faker, someone who cares only about himself (...) They [FIFA, UEFA, The United Nations, any other regulatory body you can think of] will turn a blind eye, and another piece of football’s credibility, another little part of its soul, will quietly die."

To be fair to Tony, he admits in the piece that he is "no angel", but is the man who openly admits that he played for Ireland throughout his career despite having none of the requisite qualifications - such as being Irish - really in a position to call someone else an insincere faker?

The problem with people in football getting on their high horses is that most of them, be they players, managers, or officials, will have benefited from cheating at some point in their careers. Some incidents, such as the Hand of Henry, are more clear cut and high profile than others, but that doesn't make them any more right or wrong. And, apart from the odd exception, most of them won't have done anything to try and remedy the situation. I'm not au fait with the nuances of Ireland's World Cup Qualifying campaign, but it seems unlikely they went through the entire group stage without getting the benefit of any dodgy decisions.

"They probably won't grant it as we are minnows in world football but let's put them on the spot," said Irish justice minister Dermot Ahern this morning when calling for a rematch. Perhaps once the Irish have removed the chip from their shoulder they will realise that, to mix my metaphors, they are just going to have to suck it up and take the swings with the roundabouts.

Incidentally, I should add that it's the French we should feel the most sorry for in all this. The goal means they are stuck with the completely hopeless Raymond Domenech for at least another seven months.