PS3N

It’s hard not to feel immense disappointment with the World Cup play-off in Paris. We can all moralise about the rights and wrongs of what happened and speculate about what may happen in the days to come but amongst the anger and deflation there remains a strong, overriding feeling of sadness. In a split second so quick that his actions were “instinctive”, Thierry Henry compounded his faux pas with an inane statement about intent. So roused were the emotions surrounding his handball that all before, and after, was forgotten. Even Anelka’s dive, the simulation that has so grabbed headlines in recent months, was confined to the position of afterthought. Finally, the monster that was built in football’s own image of professionalism has come home to bite the many hands that have fed it............................................

Admission

Thierry Henry’s admission that he handled the ball was always going to have a ‘but’ attached. He was quick to point out that “it wasn’t on purpose”. The second contact, however, certainly was and any attempt to deflect from this is futile to all fair minded observers. Yet, there lies the problem. Like Hollywood ‘A listers’, football stars have become so removed from our experience of the world that they delude themselves into believing their own PR. Tell someone how wonderful they are often enough and, sooner or later, they will start to believe it as gospel. So much so, in fact, that they will convince themselves of anything; that black is white, fact is fiction and evidence is circumstantial when is it witnessed by millions of TV viewers.

Different strokes for different folks?

But is Henry so different to the rest of us? Had it been an Irish hand, or our own team for that matter, would we be agitating and lobbying for a replay or punitive sanctions against the player? Of course not because we expect standards in others that we don’t always display ourselves. We all have textbook answers and statements that we reel out as and when they are needed. Arsenal fans will no more vilify Eduardo than Liverpool fans will David Ngog. It’s forgivable because he’s ours and wears the badge that we follow, without question. We can condemn our own players’ actions but in doing so, fall into the same trap as all rose tinted fans. We only do it as lip service; to say the right thing and quickly move on and away from the debate. We will justify our own by stating proudly how we “condemned it at the time” but swiftly add that “you’re not still going on about that” or “that’s ancient history”. We all kid ourselves that we are fair but you only have to look at the wide range of forums and websites to see that we won’t be at any price. We would no sooner trade our colours for fair play than Thierry Henry would. Manager’s have no reason to complain. The old adage that things even themselves out over the course of the season may or may not be true but it’s the willingness to endorse the unacceptable in their own that creates the culture and produces victims in all of us. It’s no coincidence that penalty box scuffles and shirt pulling continue to blight our game, flagrantly illegal and yet conveniently overlooked. Show me a defender who admits the deceitful shove and I’ll begin to expect the same from the Henrys of this world. There is no difference other than the clarity and occasion. It’s pointless to rewrite the rulebook for your own team by talking of ‘stonewall’ penalties or crazy decisions when it suits. It all comes back to haunt in the end. It’s when incidents occur rather than the incident itself that accentuate this culture. A World Cup play-off versus a mid-table scrap? No contest and, in all probability, no difference between the standards of refereeing. But the occasion creates the pressure and with it the irrational actions that make or break dreams. And those actions and the responsibilities that come with them always stem from the same source; the player.

"Fair Play" or "Unfair Play" Initiative....

Fifa’s ‘Fair Play’ initiative is as fragile as the paper it’s written on because they will fail to act meaningfully to stamp out such incidents. Sepp Blatter’s recent comments concerning his own days as a player highlight just how serious his organization takes cheating. “I was always a striker. ...but when we could not go through and someone put his foot there, what do you do? You do a little bit more than you should have done. Is this so terrible? I don’t think so. At least it’s not so terrible that we should intervene after a match.” Fifa’s proclamations about fair play and racism in the global game are empty, token gestures. The £44,750 fine handed out to Spain for racist abuse (vs England in 2004) was laughable on the back of the ‘Kick it Out’ campaign. With 48,000 in attendance that’s less than £1 for every supporter at the game. This equates to the proverbial “unlimited racial abuse for an extra £1” ticket option so as to cover expenses. Can we really expect any backbone when it comes to punishing players? Players are the meal ticket and for Fifa to gorge themselves in the finest restaurants, they must pander to those prized possessions.

Are you blind ref!!??

It’s easy to point the finger at the referee. The referee is the one constant factor when it comes to blame on decisions or non-decisions of this nature. And yet it is the referee who stands out as someone that should be above criticism. This is because they alone are the one entity who has nothing to gain and has not added to the growing conspiracy of professionalism. The only winning situation for the man in black is to get it right as often as possible and yet, when his interpretation is “to the letter of the law” as directed by his superiors, he is similarly ostracized. I can only imagine having my working decisions videoed, replayed and replayed again (frame by frame). Would any of us survive this level of ‘Big Brother’ intrusion that stems from the determination to get things right every time? And can we honestly say that we get decisions correct every time when viewing matches, either live or on TV? Many of us will be assertive with our convictions but sub-consciously always look to the replay for complete vindication. What a luxury! The now infamous Henry incident saw the referee perfectly placed but circumstances contrived to block his view and the referee’s assistant (linesman to the rest of us) was of little help. If it were humanly possible to accept a referee’s impartiality and competence without question then maybe we would be getting just that little bit closer to solving the problem.

Problem

The problem is a simple one. Henry and many others maintain that it is up to the referee to make the call and by not doing so is to blame. This is the farcical logic that has got us into this mess. That is akin to blaming the police and not the burglar. Lack of self respect, an absence of honesty and our obsession with winning have brought us to this place and until the players stop cheating the referees, we will continue to be cheated. But we are not blameless. As fans, we continue to perpetuate the culture of excuse and partisanship that makes us right by default because it’s us and, therefore, we decide when wrong is wrong and right is right. We deceive ourselves no less than Thierry Henry has done. We are as much the cheats as the Henrys, Eduardos, Ngogs and Maradonas and until we eradicate this from the human condition any hollow
project of good intent from Fifa, Uefa et al to promote fair play is empty rhetoric and best left alone.

“Laissez-faire” as they say in France.