Guest Blog: Dougal Paver from Paver Smith on French World Cup skulduggery

This time, however, they may have cause to reflect. A huge reaction against the lack of contrition and sportsmanship has already resulted in boycotts of French goods in Britain and Ireland; a boycott of Gillette's products because of their sponsorship of the cheating Thierry Henry; and calls at the highest diplomatic levels for the game to be replayed.

As crises go, this is a whopper for FIFA and for the French government as it exposes a number of failings - both human and institutional - to a fierce glare. How they handle it will be as much a part of the message as any contrition or sanctions.

Right now both sides have retreated to their bunkers.

For the French government the issue can be filed under 'passing storm' unless and until the French people and big business start to squeal at the reputational and monetary cost of any boycott.

As that's likely to take a while to have any meaningful impact it's fair to say that they'll seek to ride it out.

For FIFA it leaves them open to the serious charge that the game is rigged in favour of the bigger nations and that their Fair Play campaign is a meaningless charade. They unilaterally introduced seeding for the play-offs at the last minute, after all, unleashing a wave of cynicism.

That now looks like it could turn in to a tsunami as they hide behind their rules to dismiss what is clearly a gross injustice against the Irish.

They might as well just admit that fair play has no part in football and that money, power and politics are the real deal.

Cynical? Moi? You bet.