You have probably seen this a countless number of times on sports news, but it makes me sick to the stomach how the press and fans of the game alike seem to only point fingers at Thierry Henry's hand ball incident.
First of all, I will say that it was wrong from Henry to not admit that he touched the ball with his hand. He got caught with the excitement of having a wrong call ruled on his favor, and I truly believe that the great majority of player's would have reacted the exact same way. Besides, when was the last time you saw a player calling out a referee during a match because he allowed an illegal goal on his team's favor.
Why is nobody pointing fingers at the referee Martin Hansson, who I will say in his defense that he's human and it's perfectly understandable that once in a while he will make mistakes, but this is not the first that he's made a controversial call. This year alone Hansson ruled a penalty on Liverpool's favor against Atletico de Madrid when Gerrard faked a foul, and also ruled out a goal by Kaka on the Confederations Cup Brazil Vs U.S. match when the ball crossed the lined before being cleared by the American goalkeeper.
However, must of the blame should go to FIFA and Joseph Blatter for their long stand against the use of technology to call-out offsides, balls that have barely crossed the goal line, along many other hard to make referee decisions that they have to make on the split of a second, but which are in desperate need to use of video replay in order to make a perfectly fair calls. Makes me think that FIFA is way too corrupt to allow such a thing, because by allowing referees to make mistakes they will always have an excuse to fix games.
You are ight in many respects: it's mainly the referee's fault - how could he not see the handling of the ball - twice! Also the Irish team could have scored a goal before the incident and could have won the match. It's not only one incident that decides a 90 minute game.
However - and here comes the very big however: the fans hate cheating. They do not only hate it when their team is cheated out of the qualification, they do hate cheating in general. In each league game fans boo their own players for cheating and diving each week. That is why so many French fans are now embarrassed because their team qualified after playing so badly. With all the big money involved the fans still want to believe in their team and players and they want them to win by playing well and not by cheating. Therefore, Thierry Henry ruined his reputation forever - he will always be the cheating git who handballed his team into the world cup when they did not deserve it by playing well. It was not the ball hitting his hand acidentally - he almost caught it, a crystal clear case of deliberate cheating. The FIFA won't do anything to appease the hurt feelings of millions of fans and they will hurt football even more. Henri won't be welcomed much in the stadiums in the next months and his million selling role model days are over.
Similar incidents have been happening in cricket as well. Lot of decisions made by the umpires, which are proved to be incorrect by the video footage. Admittedly, most of these are very close to call and almost always no one blames the umpire, unless a lot of mistakes are made within a game. Good thing is that the Inernational Cricket Council has introduced technology in a big way into the game, and close-to-call decisions are referred to the "third umpire" who watches the footage and gives the decision.
Football is even more difficult to referee, and its surprising FIFA has not taken steps to improve things.
As far as admitting is concerned, I think the public has a very short memory of such things. If Maradonna is still considered one of the greatest footballers, then Henry is already forgiven.
Good thing you mentioned Maradona. He never once apologized for his "Hand of God" and as much as people dislike him as a person, there's no doubt that as a player he's considered a legend.
Henry on the other hand has apologized and proposed a re-match, but they just keep crucifying him. My guess is that the power of the internet had spread the fury from fans. Nowdays, everyone has a voice through blogs and forums. Back in 1986 only TV, radio, and printed media an opinion.