As former Ireland boss Mick McCarthy remarked: "If I was Richard Dunne, I can tell you that Thierry Henry wouldn't have sat by me.

"I'm 50 now and I'd shake (France manager) Raymond Domenech's hand – but had I been 20 years years younger and playing, Henry would not have sat by me. I don't know what I would have done.

"But there is not a snowball in hell's chance that I would have sat there with him, knowing what he had just done."

Just in case you had been inhabiting the planet Zog in recent days, what Henry had done was to drag the debased game further and further into the gutter by deliberately handling the ball twice before shamefully firing it across for colleague William Gallas to tap in for a damaged-goods goal.

Clearly, David Beckham HAS been on another planet, or maybe taking something other than asthmatic relief, judging by his considered comments on the cause celebre.

"I honestly didn't think Thierry meant it," said Beckham, whose belief in tall tales is such that when he next loses one of his peggys he will put it snugly beneath his pillow in case the tooth-fairy calls.

Of course, some of the clamour against Henry has bordered on the hysterical.

But the whole affair – and the way football has ducked the issue – shows that soccer people inhabit their own closed world in which their own rules apply.

The sense of fair play in soccer is virtually non-existent, unless you count the giving back of the ball to the opposition when a player goes down injured.

Big deal...

In this instance, the French football federation should do the decent thing and offer to replay the qualifier on the grounds that a gross injustice has been perpetrated.

But they won't.

Henry should have gone straight to the referee and told him what he had done, rather like a snooker player does when he – accidentally – touches the cue-ball with his sleeve, however slightly.

But he wouldn't.

Players and officials should not depict the referee as some kind of myopic Aunt Sally.

But they will – referees are too easy to blame. If they don't see something they can't possibly give it.

Roy Keane should have shown some moral support to his erstwhile Ireland team-mates by being fully supportive of this case of daylight robbery.

But he won't – quite the opposite was the case because his acrimony towards Republic Of Ireland officialdom is so deep-seated and long-lasting.

FIFA, world soccer's governing body, should introduce goal-line technology to rule on goals – and goals alone – in time for the next World Cup in South Africa.

But they won't.

What will happen is that whenever the hand-balling Frenchman appears on a football pitch it will not be 'Hooray Henry', more like 'Ya-Boo-Sucks Henry'.

That will be the lasting legacy of this sad affair, overshadowing all his other considerable achievements for clubs and country.

steve.simpson@blackpoolgazette.co.uk