FIFA's reaction to last Wednesday Night...

...Ignore it.

Well the dust is starting to settle and the shelf-life of Irish heart-break as an international headline is looking seriously limited at this point.

I saw one rumour that Henry might not play in the world cup according to the back-page of the Paris rag Le Parisien but I think I might have misread it. Roy Keane has instructed us to get over it, Eric Cantona has reminded us that he would have killed Henry, Domenech has patronised us in his arrogant slimy way, Tony Cascarino, a man who quite recently confessed that he was never actually qualified to play for Ireland has chastised Henry as a cheat, the man himself has tried to manage his falling brand image by so very nearly but, very importantly, not really apologising.

But where have FIFA been in all this? Bold statements about finally cleaning up the game? Expansive gestures towards polishing the dripping turd that is the reputation of soccer worldwide? Not a peep aside from their reading of the rule-book on Friday.

This has been the week that I gave up on Football. I have no interest in watching a sport whose governing body has for years now ignored the wishes of its supporters, has allowed cheating to run rampant in the beautiful game and has erased any shred of sportsmanship that existed in the sport through it's inaction.

This report from FIFA's own website typifies its reaction... not one single mention of the moment of cheating that turned the match. FIFA is burying its head well not in sand but in the large lake of money that it maintains in Geneva.

Soccer RIP

Thierry Henry - Class to Cheat in 0.5 second

To get some rambling and unordered thought out of my head before going to sleep...

The difference between Ireland and France this evening was the blatant cheating of the one of the erstwhile greatest players of this generation and a man who was formerly a great ambassador for the game. Thierry Henry handling the ball (twice) intentionally to keep the ball in play has lead Ireland to crash out of the World Cup qualifiers.

After exiting undefeated from a group with the world champions, after being told a week before the draw for the play-offs would be made that the play-offs would be seeded, explicitly to allow greater revenue generating nations a better chance to get into the world cup, a group of footballers dismissed as journeymen and second-rate go toe to toe with one of the greatest nations in world football... and then lose to a blatant act of cheating from the very leader of the "generation Henry"! There is no justice in sport, it is inherently unfair.

Here's my Jerry Springer summing up moment before I cry myself to sleep. If Robbie Keane had stuck the ball up his jersey and ran into the French goal and somehow the referee had allowed the goal (I know, completely hypothetical since the referee was never going to give Ireland the benefit of the doubt), would we Irish still be celebrating...

No wait, I can't do it. That situation didn't happen, that is fantasy. Henry did cheat (blatantly and intentionally) Ireland fought honestly and were given no reward. I feel nothing but disappointment and shame for Thierry Henry - he knows he cheated.

Lizarazu had the class to come out and be frank about what had happen. To paraphrase 'we cannot be proud of what happened this evening it was shameful. We can be relieved but we should be ashamed'. No one chimed in to agree (his co-host was Arsene Wenger who's hardly one to concede wrong-doing) but he was right and I think most reasonable people would agree.

Anyhow, I suppose that is the advantage of sport - "It's not a matter of life or death... it's much more important than that!".

Beatbox Euphonium

Following on my post several months ago pondering which wind instrument would get the beatbox treatment next, my money would have never been on the euphonium...




While I'm at it on my wanders about the interweb I also came across Eric Lewis a massively talented pianist doing some great arrangements of pop-rock songs - his site Eric Lewis Grooves. He has a few albums and I'm investigating which one to invest in...