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Some people are saying the latest "Hand of God" incident is serving Fifa right. After all, what can better expose the football governing body's ineptitude regarding fair play and the possible help of technology than a French star sending his team to next year's World Cup tournament with a blatant foul? While a relieved France couldn't care less, striker Thierry Henry has virtually slapped Fifa in the face with what has become the most infamous handball in history since Diego Maradona's.

This is unlike other incidents that had prompted calls for Fifa to pull its head out of the sand and make simple use of video replays to make the game fairer. This one is even clearer than Maradona's use of his hand to parry the ball into an England goal in 1986 and it happened under even crueller circumstances. The team on the receiving end, Republic of Ireland, was playing valiantly against France, and was just a few extra-time minutes away from getting its desired result of taking the game to penalty shoot-out.

Having come to France on a mission impossible after losing unfortunately 0-1 in the first leg at home due to a deflected goal, Republic of Ireland had every reason to feel robbed. A lot of players saw Henry's handball vividly, and anyone watching the game on TV had no doubt that the goal he set up for William Gallas was absolutely illegitimate. Fifa's inexplicable stance against the use of video replays to help referees, however, meant that Republic of Ireland's heroic efforts were crushed and the nation's truly justified dreams shattered.

It also left Henry, one of the greatest players of all time, with an indelible scar on his career. He admitted afterwards that it was a handball but his assertion that it was the referee's job to allow or disallow the goal will not repair the damage to his reputation. The handball could have been a reflex - although from the replay it was anything but - yet his celebration belied his admission that it was a handball. During those fateful seconds, the star appeared to be someone who was completely aware of what he was doing.

But at the end of the day, Henry is just one of many great players who cheated because the system allowed, if not encouraged, them to do so. Cristiano Ronaldo is notorious and Steven Gerrard has won a few scandalous penalty claims. They do it because they know referees are human and that even if they are exposed by TV footage later, the results are not going to change. Fifa may punish them, but the governing body has set up a system that makes them not care.

Amid the post-match outrage, one argument in France's, and thus Fifa's, favour was that Republic of Ireland would have themselves been delighted if the team had made it through in a similar manner. The whole Republic of Ireland nation, it was said, would have celebrated the night away without shedding a single tear for France.

The sad thing is, no matter how absurd this argument sounds, it's almost certainly true. Injustice in football has been so rampant and frequent that people won't look at themselves but others when it comes to fair play. Fifa, however, can't escape blame for this widespread hypocrisy and ethical double standard because they are the direct result of its refusal to make the game fairer.

Next year's World Cup is yet to begin. But the prelude has set a gloomy tone for the planet's most popular sport where sportsmanship is concerned.