Roy Keane: The Voice Of Reason?

1st up, I recognise this blog is fast becoming a football blog, which was never my intention. The title of the blog could only fit that topic but I will endeavour to write about something more interesting in the near future.

But for now it's all about the week's main talking point - the Hand of Frog. I think given the view I'm going to take I should first qualify a few points:

I am not Irish, but have always enjoyed an Irish big tournament appearance for the fun, ridiculous optimism and spirit they bring, and was gutted that they did not beat the ageing and frankly SO 1998 French. I do not agree that just because 'everyone does it' that the handball was 'ok', and in fact this incident has started to make me believe that technology should possibly be brought into football sooner rather than later, which is not how I've felt before. The seeding of the play-offs by FIFA was in itself a low and cynical move, and while the games could have been exactly the same, few would have complained had France and, say, Portugal met to rid the World Cup of at least one overblown posturing team of diving, handballing and whingeing cheats. But then for that description you could subsitute England, Spain, Brazil and yes, Ireland. And this is my point...

Ok, so I'm sure everyone's at least read what Roy Keane has said, but if not it is here. I couldn't agree more - GET OVER IT. As I type this John Motson is also talking more sense on Football Focus, and to be honest I think the print media alongside the FAI more than anything else have blown this out of the water more than anyone else.

The incident itself, as anyone who plays football will tell you if speaking honestly, was essentially pure instinct and it's something that most of us would do if the ball was travelling across the body going out of play when you're in the 6 yard box in extra time to go to the world cup. You do it, and ask questions later, or at least wait for them to be asked. I don't believe that the act itself is a moral issue because, especially in the culture of the game as it has evolved in the last 20 or so years, football cannot claim any kind of moral leadership, or indeed character, when every 90 minutes (or 120...) is rife with attempts to win free kicks, whether fouled or otherwise, waste time, steal yards, influence the referee, wind up the opposition and yes handle the ball. I do it in Duchy League Division 4 as much as Thierry Henry does it (yep, I did just include myself in a sentence with Henry, shoot me) in a World Cup Play Off.

I'm afraid that in this day and age football has lost any kind of nobility and yet we still love it. Why? Well for the drama of course. The theatre of it, the passion of it and yes, the controversey. Fair play is at best a side dish, served when it suits people in normally the least important circumstances. If it were any different there wouldn't be the money, the TV coverage and the rainforests of trees taken up by the likes of that idiot Henry Winter at the Telegraph (ban Henry? Then ban anyone else who 'cheated' during WC qualifying) that there is today. Some might say that the big teams/nations get favoured by referees and that may have some weight but that's not the point, at least here. Me and a friend, who I'll refer to as Virgil, were just discussing this and he reckons that if it had been Brazil instead of Ireland the game would have bee replayed. I don't think that's how FIFA work myself, they're far more underhand and wouldn't do it so blatantly. But again, it's not the point. And as I said, morals and decency ain't football's way.

That this has brought so much contraversey is perfect for the game in it's current state, whatever people may say. It show's people care. Even in Ireland where football is probably not the 1st or 2nd sport in the country, they care. I wish they had made it, that Henry hadn't handballed and that Shay Given had gone on to save 5 penalties (and lets not forget that Ireland weren't at the point of going through when the Henry handballed), and that they'd gone on to be drawn with Brazil, Netherlands and Ivory Coast and beat them all to set up a 2nd round tie with England only to be spiritedly beaten by a Rooney hat trick, but it didn't and won't happen.

If we start challenging referee's decisions post match and replaying games based on it then we start losing any shroud or shred of RESPECT the sport has in its on field officials. And that's not counting the amounts of games those poor overworked football types would have to play - probably at LEAST 3 a week, poor dears. The tribal battle, the intense nationalism and the personal pride - all these things would have infuenced Henry's instinct and while we shouldn't congratulate him for it, we have to allow for it to keep the game at the pinacle of international sport.

And if we lose all that, what more does the game have?