Football FanCast columnist David Mooney feels that Ireland were cheated out of the World Cup long before Henry’s antics.

The Republic of Ireland were cheated out of a World Cup place long before Thierry Henry decided he preferred volleyball over football.

It’s a bold conclusion, but one I feel justified in holding given they were victims of the first seeded playoff draw; a decision that was sneaked into the World Cup Qualifying campaign when the people at FIFA suddenly spotted that some of the more notable nations in the world might not qualify.

See, we want a World Cup where the best nations on the planet are all playing each other, right? So you can’t have a World Cup without France or Portugal, can you?

Well, you can if they’ve not been playing well. I ask you: how can you be sending the best teams to the World Cup if they can’t qualify from their groups outright? How can France and Portugal be seeded so they don’t meet each other and both have the best chance of qualifying if they haven’t qualified from their groups when expected to do so?

They are clearly not deserving of a helping hand in the playoffs.

But they got one. A big one.

Ireland had an uphill task from the moment that decision was made. True, in an unseeded draw, they might have drawn France, but they also had a chance of drawing one of the weaker teams. And, when it became clear that the big boys could play each other and one of them might not make it, FIFA decided to fix it so they couldn’t meet. Avoiding France, Portugal and Russia would have given Ireland a fantastic chance of making South Africa.

But avoiding them in a seeded draw was a one in four shot, instead of what should have been a four in seven shot. How on Earth can anybody anywhere anytime defend changing the rules of a competition such as the World Cup Qualifiers during that tournament? It’d be like awarding four points for a win halfway through a Premier League season when it became clear that Manchester United or Chelsea wouldn’t win the league.

Then, having been asked to undertake a hard task of beating France, they should have, at least, had the chance for penalties. They were the better side in Paris, but Henry’s hand from a header that came from an offside position ensured they didn’t get that chance.

In fact, aside from a murder, I don’t think there could have been much more wrong with the goal that France scored. It was criminal that the officials missed it. It’s even more criminal that there’s no system in place to alert them if they’ve missed something like it.

I’d like to see if Platini calls for video technology after this.

Of course, lots of other sports allow video technology: rugby has it, cricket has it, tennis has hawk-eye, hell, even the bloody snooker allows referees to replace the balls in the right place with the aid of a TV monitor after a foul.

But football won’t go down that line for fear of setting a dangerous precedent. Of… what?

That referees might make the correct decisions? That would be a very dangerous line to go down, wouldn’t it? After all, we can’t have that. That would be far too simple!

That video technology wouldn’t be available to all levels of the game – from the World Cup to the amateurs in the park – is the often used excuse for not bringing it in. Well, that’s just tough. If FIFA were so bothered about making sure that everything in football was equal, then they would make sure that the amateur games I’ve played in had assistant referees. Us amateurs don’t get them, yet the Premier League does – if you’re denying the Premier League video technology because us amateurs can’t have it, you should deny them assistant referees.

Hell, I’ve played in amateur matches that didn’t even have sodding netting around the goalposts.

I find it amusing that football’s governing bodies won’t allow referees to use video technology to make the correct decisions, but they look at every bloody angle under the sun to then punish players and/or officials for things that happen in matches. Hypocritical isn’t strong enough to cover it.

The fact that it was Henry, a gentleman and scholar in many people’s opinions, who did the deed surprises me. I thought the man had more integrity than to cheat when things were going badly. If that ball was going out of play, any honest player would have done his best to use legitimate parts of their body to keep it in and to use a hand and gain a goal from it is nothing short of cheating from a man who’s now descended greatly in my estimations.

Ireland have come out of this game the victors, morally. Unfortunately, that will mean **** all to those players whose last chance this was to make a World Cup finals. And it will mean **** all to the fans.

In the cold light of day, though, Ireland can hold their heads high. FIFA, France and Thierry Henry should be hanging their heads in shame. If just one of those bodies would come out and say they had gone about this the wrong way or, in the case of Henry and France, “we/I cheated”, then I will have more respect for them. But I won’t hold my breath.

The only good thing to come out of this was the British Media Headline Prediction Game that I stumbled across on Twitter. Some of them best included: Hand of Frog, Thierry Hand-ry, French Nickers and, my personal favourite, for the Daily Express: Ireland Cheated in Diana Death City.