I REMEMBERED the other night that France was playing Ireland in a World Cup decider. I live in France and have a couple of French friends but then I also have Irish friends.

I enjoyed the Irish display. Then in extra time Thierry Henry not so much handled the ball as juggled it to set up the winning goal. Now football is a matter of opinion and some people see incidents differently while others see them as clear-cut. As it happens I would defy the most blinkered Frenchman to do anything other than admit the Irish were cheated out of the World Cup.

As a result, the name of France will be entered in the list of competing nations and FIFA, the body that organizes the game we invented and gave to the world, will do nothing whatsoever about rectifying the ills of yesterday, far less making sure they are not repeated.

Video technology, deployed by many other sports, is shunned by FIFA who seek a human solution to the fact so many referees get it wrong. They have been getting it wrong for years but that does not seem to have worked its way into the brains of football’s administrators., nor the fact referees have an even harder job of getting things right as the pace of the game has accelerated so much.

We see it every week on television. Liverpool gain an equalizer from the spot converting a penalty that should not have been awarded; John Terry pulls down a Manchester United player in the penalty area by holding his shirt and no penalty is awarded. Ironically Terry later scored a goal in the same match while a teammate pulled an opponent to the ground. Also Jamie Carragher pulled down the escaping Michael Owen in another game and there was the Arsenal penalty against Celtic.

I believe most people are in agreement as to the sins and the sinners in these instances but there is a thread that runs forever through the morally challenged national game that suggests you do everything illegal you can get away with.

Was Michael Owen certain to score, ask the ex-players who are deemed experts on the box? Apart from the fact Callagher obviously thought he would score, are we saying you can chop anyone down cynically and escape severe punishment as long as he is not a direct threat on your goal.

Back at the studio, we saw Jamie Redknapp, in his shiny 1970’s suit, watch the video of Didier Drogba’s foul on Wes Brown. He acknowledged: “He’s pulling him; he’pulling him . . . but I don’t think he’s pulling him hard enough for him to go to ground.”

Did I hear that, I asked myself? Is our Jamie drawing our attention to an as yet unknown law of the game, one in which states you can pull an opponent by any means as long as you do not exert enough pressure to cause him to fall?

Certainly I do not think such license was considered a few years back when the Laws of the Game were drafted by former Watford Grammar School teacher Stanley Rous, but the game has had these horrendous moments before and will continue to do so but FIFA are not rushing to cure the ills. In fact I reckon FIFA will ignore this morally corrupt result; just as they did when Maradona cheated, or the French suffered when Patrick Battison was in a coma after a challenge by Germany’s Harald Schumacher, who was not even penalised for a horrendous tackle.

Watching the final minutes of the Ireland game I mused that even this will not wake up FIFA. Their heads remain in the sand, as has been the case for the past 25 years and nothing, it seems can move them from their pedestrian thinking.

Then, switching over from the football, I happened to stumble across a programme I avoid at all costs – I am talking about the I Was a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here farce which this time round involves an extension of that old book What Katy Did Next, which for some reason beyond my compass, seems to be important to some. But seeing the programme briefly flicker across my screen before I switched channels again, I had an idea as daft as the programme.

I think I would have to settle for sending FIFA to the jungle with just Ant and Dec and Katie Price for company, instructing them to remain there until they come up with a solution.

I reckon within a few days of listening to their mundane, cheesy nonsense, the men from FIFA, led by the aptly-named Sepp Blather – sorry Blatter - would come up with a radical new way of dealing with the ills of the game: anything to get out of there.