Unfortunately for Thierry Henry the dreaded handball moment from 2009 came back to haunt him once more after the Irish FA admitted to having received a considerable amount of money in order to close their eyes and drop a lawsuit which could have cost Sepp Blatter’s FIFA and France a lot of money. According to the Daily Express, this is just one of the many incidents set to emerge over the next couple of weeks. Blatter’s cover-up consisted of a £5m “loan” to build a stadium, later written off, which convinced John Delaney to not go through with asking for an extra spot in the World Cup finals which could have had 33 participants instead of 32.

It is a pity that Henry’s name has to be involved in such a disgraceful scandal especially if you consider the Gunner’s love for the game. Arsenal’s former captain who played 368 games for the Londoners has never received a red card while in the UK and was seen as a model player every young player should look up to. It took a lot of character to admit that the handball incident would not have happened the way it did if not for the immense desire to have his country qualifying to the World Cup. Even though Henry had nothing to do with what happened after the game, it is still unpleasant to see Arsenal’s legend be linked to any of the FBI’s cases regarding FIFA or any other unpleasant incident regarding football altogether.