Why The FAI Have Had A Hand In A Big Own Goal

Dan Clifford, director at Haslimann Taylor, writes:

What is the most own goals ever scored in a World Cup playoff match? I’m not really sure but the Republic of Ireland and France seemed to be trying to beat the record during (and more importantly following) their recent clash in Dublin.

How should you handle a sporting travesty like the one Ireland faced? And should France, in the shape of Thierry Henry, have acted differently in the first place?

Firstly, Henry was unlikely to own up to the handball, and to be fair, he probably wouldn’t be expected to. Football is a massive game of very small margins and players strive for every advantage they can gain – whether that be appealing for a throw in when they know they were the last person to touch the ball, or pulling the odd shirt or two on the blind side of the referee.

The poor judgement that Henry then made was to take on the role of lead consoler of broken hearted Irishman when the final whistle blew. In 2005, Haslimann Taylor was working with Andrew Flintoff when the memorable image of him kneeling beside a broken Brett Lee was captured, and given to the sporting world as an icon of true competitive spirit. But this was very different – Freddie was not harbouring a grubby secret about how the result came about and he was not attempting some reputation protection; it was a natural outpouring of emotion after five days of toil. Henry’s ‘gesture’ towards Richard Dunne smacked of a quick PR exercise, and if anything left everyone who had seen a TV replay of the winning goal cringing with embarrassment.

Ireland would have emerged with huge credit for the way they handled the injustice, had it not been for the bungling FAI flying in studs first yet again. Calling for the match to be replayed was desperate, ridiculous, and a waste of time. All it did was damage the goodwill felt toward every green shirt for the way things had unfolded. If we replayed every game where an injustice had occurred then hardly a result would ever stand – and it wouldn’t be football. And the FAI should know that.

And then there are the French, who said nothing at all. You would have imagined it to take about an hour for the French Football Federation to produce a statement defending Henry, sympathising with Ireland, admitting that they were hugely fortunate to progress and drawing line under the tie – but they chose to keep their heads below the parapet and leave their striker to be demonised.

Then, to make matters worse, Henry waited for FIFA to declare that replaying the game was an impossibility before announcing that he felt a reply was the fairest solution (it wasn’t going to happen) and admitting that he considered retiring due to the lack of support from his football bosses in France – but decided against it because it wanted to be in the World Cup. Further salting Irish wounds.

All in all - as a very public example of a crisis communications test – Thierry Henry, the FFF and the FAI have all failed miserably.