It is up to the ref, but what has happened to ‘fair play’?
21-Nov-2009

Spare a thought for Thierry Henry.

He’s a French soccer star whose annual income is more than this newspaper sees in a good decade.

He plays his best football at club level, but, naturally, when his country calls him up to do his World Cup duty, he’s there for them.

He wants France to make it to the world’s most prestigious climactic football carnival and he wants as much as anyone else in his team and everyone playing the game, to be there on the winning side at the final whistle.

So when everything is on the line in the final qualifying opportunity for his nation’s game against the Republic of Ireland, it is no surprise that Henry will take very advantage of every opportunity to get his team into a winning position.

Come extra time in a game heading for a penalty shoot-out to settle the winner, Henry receives a ball, pats it down with his hand and passes to fellow player, William Gallas, who puts it away for a French victory because the referee allows it.

Henry celebrates with his team-mates leaving the Irish goal keeper and his crest-fallen gob-smacked team mates to take their very obvious miscarriage-of-justice complaint to the referee - who remains unmoved.

End of story?

Not at all.

As the Football Association of Ireland bluntly put it, a ‘blatantly incorrect decision by the referee has damaged the integrity of the game’.

It is hard to disagree.

Henry admitted his ‘handball’ had won the game for France, but tried to escape responsibility for his piece of foul play by saying it was up to the referee.
And technically it is.

But where in Henry’s attitude to his sport, is ‘fair play’?

Is sport to be reduced to what you can get away with?

What of the ideal of ‘sportmanship’ itself?

Why did Henry not stop the game himself and concede to the referee that he had indeed handballed the soccer ball? Is the spirit of the game to be cheapened by trickery?

Moreover, is it fair to all that a refereeing lapse should decide a critical encounter of this kind?

Perhaps, in the obvious absence of the spirit of fair play (and until players rediscover that ethic), it is time that soccer’s world governing body, FIFA, came to terms with the hard and ugly reality of modern competitiveness by doing what numerous other sporting codes do: introduce video refereeing to allow a just resolution of controverted decisions.

In American football, flags can be thrown by referees who see something untoward occurring on the field during a passage of play.

The head referees can review a play and head coaches can appeal decisions.

Such is the motivation in that code to get things right and to obtain a just outcome.

In cricket, video umpires can assist in close calls as to whether or not a batsman is out or not.

In rugby union, video refs may be called upon to clarify player and ball movements at try time.

In rugby league, the same may actually make the decision itself and award the points for scoring.

In each of these codes, spectators and players alike, as well as the reputation of the code and the good name of sport generally, all benefit and profit by justice being better served on the field.

Yet in soccer, the world’s most popular and arguably its greatest football code, no such ethos applies.

Instead, the game lags with a ‘see-what-you-can-get-way-with’ ethic driving much of the on-field gamesmanship. Players ‘dive’ whenever they think they can escape punishment and some of soccer’s action is derived from pure Hollywood performances worthy of Oscars.
And as we saw with the pathetic Thierry Henry (acting in the spirit of Maradona), hand ball too if they can get a win and get away with it.

This must all change.

It may be too late for Irish hopes this time, but the injustice they suffer now should not be left to chance into the future. Soccer is only sport, but sport is about fair play – or it isn’t sport at all