by Simon Wright

Created on: November 19, 2009   Last Updated: November 27, 2009

Thierry Henry had his "Maradona moment" on the 18th of November 2009, when he handled the ball (twice) to create a goal for French team-mate William Gallas at the Stade de France. The Swedish referee and his fellow match officials didn't spot the deliberate handball and wrongly allowed the goal to stand, despite the fierce protestations of the aggrieved Irish players. Sadly, neither Henry nor any of his team-mates saw fit to own up to the fact that the goal shouldn't have stood and Ireland's dreams of playing in the World Cup were dashed.

The fallout from this moment of dastardly French cheating will be interesting to observe. FIFA were, of course, faced with a similar situation at the 1986 World Cup finals when Argentina's Diego Maradona scored his handball goal to knock England out of the tournament. Not only was Maradona's goal allowed to stand but the Argentinian player didn't even receive a subsequent ban, and was able to inspire his nation to World Cup glory. That, though, was twenty-three years ago and these days players are routinely punished after matches for offences that officials miss. This raises the question of whether Henry will receive a ban from FIFA?

In the interests of fair play, and protecting the image of football, it's imperative that Henry is served with some sort of punishment. FIFA makes a big play about promoting fair play and can't be seen to condone cheating. The question then becomes one of how severe the punishment should be? If the referee had spotted Henry's handball, the player would have received a yellow card. However, the fact that the handball wasn't stopped led to serious consequences, as it effectively decided the outcome of the tie. Given this, most observers would conclude that Henry should serve a ban, to lay down a marker of what will happen if players are found to have deliberately cheated.

The very least that Henry should face is a one game ban but a better option would be a three game ban. That would mean he would miss all of France's initial Group stage matches at the World Cup and might mean that he would miss out on a place in their squad. That would be a fitting punishment for the player and would have a deterrent value; other players would know that if they cheat at the World Cup then they can expect to also be served with a ban.

The omens however are not particularly great. As mentioned, FIFA didn't act against Maradona in 1986 and their immediate match report (on their website www.fifa.com) didn't even mention

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