Hello,

I’m french and I feel only shame after the Henry’s hand. I will not support France for the world cup.
You disserved your ticket …

great performance, platini got what he wanted in the end though

You hit the nail on the head Jim. I feel sorry for the lads, they played their hearts out…

Gutted. Penalties, even getting hammered in Paris, not other form of loss could sting more than this, knowing we were the better team and that we lost because of a shameless cheat.

So much frustration that there will be absolutely no justice for Ireland for this.

Platini called for a retrospective ban for Eduardo when he conned the ref for a penalty for Arsenal against Celtic – lets see him call for punishment for Henry.

The pain, will hopefully, receed and we should be bloody proud of that team. 2012 Euros is a realistic goal now, and should be the send off the senior players in the team deserve.

As for Henry, for all his goals, his flair, his charisma and his talent, what he did last night ensures that his name will evoke thoughts of a cheat for hundreds of thousands of fans. I doubt he cares.

Ireland played great. France have cheated their way to the world cup. And, Henry has forever ruined his reputation and will always be known as a Cheat. Fifa need to look at this. In the interests of fair play there should be a replay but that won’t happen.

I am writing to FIFA to make a comment, even though I expect it to fall on deaf ears. Last night’s game between Ireland and France is a travesty for the game I have loved since I was a small boy. Mr. Platini and Mr. Blatter always talk about fair play and openness in the game, but I wonder will fair play win out on this occasion. The destiny of two football nations was last night decided by cheating! Is this what FIFA represents? I always assumed they stood for the exact opposite, but it seems actions DO really speak louder then words. Propaganda spin is all FIFA’s fair play talk is, for in a game that is losing its appeal by the week due to obscene wages and journeymen players, now cheating and the progression of the ‘big’ teams take precedent over fair play. FIFA claims to promote fair play but actually embodies the short coming of the game by actually reinforcing the fact that everything that’s wrong with modern football is actually dominant in FIFA’s policy. What hope has our game now I ask, I’m sure in 10,000 years football will still be, if not the biggest sport in the world, but at what cost I ask you? “What shall a man gain if he should gain the world but lose he’s own soul” I remember someone who is actually in the fair play game saying that! Before we go any deeper into our beloved game being controlled by money, remember what football is really about, it’s about skill, vision, passing, team work, being aggressive and winning fairly. That’s the soccer I fell in love with as a kid, dreaming one day of playing in the F.A. cup in wembley, not television rights, and big contracts and modelling contracts, it looks to me like soccer is dead, or at least only really alive on muddy pitches in parks played by the everyday man. Stop the cheating FIFA, only you have the power, stop the diving the hand balls, the fake injuries and stop it before soccer is no longer a game I want for my kids. Replay the game again and let the best team win properly whoever that may be. Do this not for Ireland or for the media, but do for the same reason you started kicking a football when you were a kid, do it for the football.

Stephen Loughnane.
Co.Kerry.

@ Stephen

Have you got an email address/ postal address for Fifa- Maybe other people will voice similar concerns if you post it up.

@ Derek M

Keane did handle the ball a few times but it was accidental on each occasion and he was penalised each time. Yes, the officials should have spotted it but you cannot condone players having a mentality of “I’ll cheat and if the ref doesn’t spot it then its ok” and lay all the blame on the ref.

@ Tom

players cheat in every game its now unfortunately part and parcel of the game.

its the officials job to spot it.

i dont think all of keanes handballs were accidental.

i’m not condoning what henry did but i bet you keane or duff would have done the exact same thing as henry did if they were in the same position.

even trap has just said in his press conference that its not henrys fault and that the referee left the goal stand not henry.

as i said its missed chances in the 90 minutes that have cost ireland they missed so many chances to put france away that the incident should never happened.

Thierry Henry is not the only fella taking a bit of a shoeing this morning. Swedish referee Martin Hansson has been receiving all kinds of flak in his homeland, with Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet’s report reading: “We guarantee they the Irish fans feel pretty bad today, but I sincerely hope there are three Swedes that feel even worse. They are Martin Hansson and his assistants. There will be no World Cup for Ireland and I assume that Team Hansson has also forfeited it’s right to continue to take charge of major international matches. Anything else would be a further insult to the Irish nation.”

Neill, have a read

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/nov/19/thierry-henry-handball-france-ireland

The whole ‘we wouldn’t have minded if we had done it at the other end thing’ is a) insulting and b) a red herring.

I think Henry’s actions after the final whistle spoke volumes about what happened.
The way he sheepishly walked up to Dunne and sat down beside him like a dog would after being scolded by his master made for embarrassing tv.
That said I do think it was an instinctive action by Henry that a hell of a lot of other players would have done if they were in his position.

The FAI has called for a replay with France after confirming that it will lodge a complaint with FIFA following the Republic of Ireland’s controversial defeat in Paris which denied the country a place at next year’s World Cup.

A statement read: ‘The Football Association of Ireland confirmed that it will lodge a complaint with FIFA, following last night’s World Cup play-off match between France and the Republic of Ireland in Paris.

‘Conclusive video evidence of a deliberate hand ball by Thierry Henry, which led to France’s additional time goal, has been seen by millions of football fans worldwide. The blatantly incorrect decision by the referee to award the goal has damaged the integrity of the sport and we now call on FIFA, as the world governing body for our sport, to organise for this match to be replayed. The hand ball, was recognised [by] the FIFA commissioner, the referee observer and the match officials, as well as by the player himself.’

The statement continued: ‘There is precedent for the invalidation of such results. In 2005, the Bureau of the FIFA World Cup organising committee reached a decision to invalidate the result of a World Cup qualification match between Uzbekistan and Bahrain on the basis of a “technical error by the referee of the match”.

‘The Football Association of Ireland is hoping that FIFA and its Disciplinary Committee will, on behalf of football fans world-wide, act in a similar fashion so that the standards of fair play and integrity can be protected.’

The army of clueless are rapidly losing us the moral high ground at this stage

Montenegro 0-0 Ireland
Ireland 1-1 Bulgaria
Bulgaria 1-1 Ireland
Ireland 0-0 Montenegro

Maybe if we had won these four games we wouldnt be having this conversation. Do we really deserve to be at the world cup if we cant score one goal against Montenegro.

Wikipedia has been updated

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thierry_Henry&oldid=326715091

its a crying shame what happened last night to the team after one of the best games of football i’ve seen in a long time- i think last night everyone was shocked and devastated and angry and rightly so..but the racist ignorant remarks some people are making called Henry a n*****- i cant even bring myself to write it, it’s just disgusting…and making the rest of the irish look bad…

i think we all need to take a step back and watch what we say..i have a friend on facebook whose french and I actually apologised to her in an email in advance because of some of the comments that were left “jokingly” on my page by fellow friends, random people i know etc…she too apologised for the game and the way it ended and told me she felt ashmed, but this morning after reading some of the comments that have been floating around the internet, i feel a little bit ashamed..

I am french and I wanted to ask for forgiveness to the Irish people.
Thierry Henry, the french captain had an opportunity of entering the history of sport by the main entrance. If he had recognized his fault with the referee, he had the possibility of marking whole World with an example of sportsmanship. On the contrary he will go out through the window by leaving the image of a cheater. Our coach Raymond Domenech had also no slightest word of sorry. Shame to him. Unlike the algerians supporters who have destroyed windows and burnt cars in several cities to celebrate the victory of their team, the Irish supporters, who had legally the right to feel stolen made no damages in Paris.
I am very sad that Ireland is not qualified. Your players have made a big match and all the Irish people had to be proud of them. Regrettably I am french…

What can you say? Brutal injustice, heartbreaking, gut-wrenching etc etc

The people I feel most sorry for are the players. To miss out on the world cup finals in such a way is simply awful, especially knowing that for many of them it was their last chance to get there.

The most important thing is that FIFA put systems in place to make sure this kind of thing NEVER happens again.

I’m starting to feel a bit sorry for the French fans. They’re so apologetic!

It’s beyond a joke at this point Dara O’Briain was on newsnight discussing it with the (now very, very grey) David Ginola last night.

FIFA are determined to ruin the sport they govern in the minds of an entire nation. Do they not get how bad this looks? It’s the front page of the US edition of CNN. Soccer has been thought of as a cheater’s sport in the US for years and it just confirms that. Football is often heartbreaking when played by the rules for 90 minutes. It pisses you off when you see faking and deceit in a league game, but when this happens and there’s no recourse it makes a complete mockery of the officials, the rules, the organisation and hojnest players. The sport is in disgrace and FIFA don’t get that. It must raise questions in the minds of people in the sport. And why Roy Keane thinks it’s a nice oppurtunity to renew old enmities is completely beyond me.
I’ve been reading the comments on Liberation, Le Monde, Le Nouvel Observateur and the French fans are completely embarassed. I don’t expect a replay, but I don’t see why Henry should share in the World Cup. He should withdraw voluntarily to try and save some face or he should be banned from the compeition. It might make other players think twice, not about handling the ball but about failing to correct the injustice by telling the ref, by trying to correct the wrong they’ve done. With so much pressure I can see it happening to any striker. But to celebrate and wait to see if the ref calls you on out on something so underhand is what I regard as really despicable.
And Domenach… The obnoxiousness of that man leaves me fuming.

Andy@43 – ”Never using gillette razors again. Classless, cheating cunt. Why dunner didn’t deck him at the end is beyond me”

Andy, Please tell me you’re joking. You ARE joking, yes?

Looking around FBook and some message boards and whatnot, it is rather eye-opening to see how so many are using this as an angle to get in a lot of derogatory French feeling