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The night France's philosopher king spat in the face of the common man

It was another Frenchman, Jean‑Paul Sartre, who cooked up the phrase "by any means necessary" as a war cry to eradicate class in Gallic society. Then along came Thierry Henry to invert its purpose as the strong stamped on the weak on the road to the World Cup.

That's the last time we'll want to hear a homily from Henry about how he escaped the projects to become a superstar, a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur and a Gillette ambassador. The double handball that sent France to South Africa at the Republic of Ireland's expense was the aristocracy micturating on the proletariat while law and order looked the other way.

"It was necessary to exploit what was exploitable," Henry told French journalists. He was referring partly to Ireland's missed opportunities but the double-meaning is obvious. "I do not understand why we are being portrayed as the guilty party," chimed the barmy Raymond Domenech, the France coach. "I can see it is a mistake by the referee. To me this is the game and not cheating."

In the year of the fraud – fake-blood capsules, deliberate F1 crashes – the theft of Ireland's hopes of going to the 2010 World Cup offered incontrovertible evidence that deception is now endemic in the world's favourite game. "I really don't think he meant it," said David Beckham, who was bound to interject at some point. Pearl Harbor was instinctive. Those Japanese bombs made spur of the moment contact with those American ships.

"I'm not the referee, but if I hurt someone I'm sorry," Henry tweeted. Notice that Henry waited until after Fifa ruled out a replay before saying it might be the right solution. With each swan dive, handball and feigned injury we have shuffled to the moment where the modern player thinks it is his duty to cheat, and the responsibility of the state to stop him. To Henry and Domenech, this was a failure not of spirit, of fair play or values but of governance, as a perfectly good Swedish referee who had correctly refused to award France's Nicolas Anelka a penalty moments earlier had his reputation sullied by a pair of chancers.

Not content to take the game down, coach and captain took the ref down, too, impugning his professionalism in a way that might haunt him evermore. Life is so random that sometimes you wonder why we bother planning anything beyond the next 10 seconds. For example: had Ireland's Paul McShane stuck a foot out to redirect the high ball into the penalty area that Henry twice controlled with his hand instead of watching it pass then we would have been spared the nauseating spectacle of the Barcelona striker seeking absolution from Richard Dunne later as the two sat on the pitch.

Henry's guilt was scored across his face. France had just added a player to their World Cup squad: Raskolnikov, consumed with guilt and writhing in his room in Africa. But then came the self-acquittal. It was necessary to exploit what was exploitable. And the most dispiriting aspect of it might be that the Ireland players, by their reluctance to confront him after the game – Dunne actually tapped Henry's leg as if in sympathy – were acceding to what they all know about their trade. The balance is now tilted in favour of swindling. As in society you grab what you can.

The visceral resistance to this fundamental corruption is apparent across Ireland, Britain and France, but there will be no exodus from stadiums because the drama-addiction always outweighs the disgust. Italy won the last World Cup in the year of a huge match-fixing scandal, and the victory in Berlin was cast as a redemptive tale. Expect more of the same if Henry scores the winning goal in next summer's final.

One thinks of Opus Dei, the Roman Catholic organisation to whose doctrine Giovanni Trapattoni, the Ireland coach, adheres. In this faith we are all called to holiness and life is a path to sanctity. In modern football – an exercise in plunder – few will be signing up for Mortification, the control of desire through self-inflicted hardship. Better to do the crime and then talk like Sartre.

There was worse news in Ireland: severe flooding, 20% of households in arrears, two more swine flu deaths. Yet there is no overstating the emotional jolt that came with France's ill-gotten gains. It made people queasy. It was another violation of a great sport's raison d'être, another step on the path to a dystopian future in which chiselling is an art form, with its own scoreboard.

A referee traduced, a nation conned, a morally demented coach, an unrepentant perpetrator, supine governing bodies, a contagion of embarrassment across France: all in all, a grand night in Paris. Next time you burgle or stab someone, try this as a defence: "I'm not the police."

Dave Whelan insists Marlon King has no future in football or at Wigan

The Wigan Athletic chairman, Dave Whelan, has reacted strongly to the claims of Marlon King's agent that the disgraced footballer has a future in football. Whelan, who insists he will sack the striker after he was convicted for sexual assault and actual bodily harm and sentenced to 18 months in prison, was infuriated by agent Tony Finnegan's claims that King will find a new club on his release from jail.

"He will still be a good goalscorer and I'm sure someone will want his signature to play football and do the job he's best at," said Finnegan. "There are lots of players in this country who have fallen short of the law, done the crime, done the time, and I'm sure if you're sitting in a [cell] you do have time to reflect on the change you make as a person."

Finnegan's statement, however, has further enraged Whelan. "I do not want convicts at Wigan Athletic. Some club will sign him when he gets out – they'll take the risk. But they shouldn't," he told Sky Sports. "The FA should stop him playing professional football for 18 months after he has served his sentence. They should ask themselves if we want people with criminal records like this lad, especially with the type of crime he has committed over his career. This is not just a one off.

"They should say, 'Well, we have had enough of that". I can't see him coming back. He is absolutely sacked. We will not tolerate this kind of behaviour. It will be very, very difficult for any club to stick their neck out and take Marlon on. I cannot really see him coming back as a professional. A lot of people will say you do something wrong and you get a sentence and when you have completed it you are allowed back in. But I wouldn't allow him back in.

"I think it was Steve Bruce who signed him for us and I was a little bit surprised. I knew he had some form in the past. Steve sometimes thinks he can settle these lads down and get them to go on the straight and narrow. We laid out £3m on this lad and we've lost most of that money now. But we have standards that we want to keep to. It's a professional game. I am sure every club in the Premier League would have sacked him like I did."

Barton released from jail

Joey Barton has been released from jail after serving 74 days of a six-month sentence. The Newcastle midfielder had been jailed for assault in May after he attacked two people in Liverpool last December and had an appeal for early release turned down this month.

But today the midfielder enjoyed his first taste of freedom after weeks in the cells. Barton, wearing jeans and a jumper and carrying a holdall, shook hands with a friend waiting for him outside the prison gates. He made no comment to reporters before getting into a waiting silver Land Rover and being driven off.

Barton also has a four-month suspended sentence hanging over him after being convicted of an assault on his former Manchester City team-mate Ousmane Dabo, but the Professional Footballers' Association are hoping Barton is able to focus on his career and put off-field problems behind him.

The PFA chief executive, Gordon Taylor, believes that the Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan could be the ideal character for Barton to be working with.

"Hopefully Kevin thinks he can work his oracle with Joey and get his life back on track, both as a human being and as a footballer," Taylor told BBC Five Live. "Kevin is very much a people person. He has shown his emotions quite clearly in public. We're all human beings and we all have our failings.

"At the same time you've got to be responsible for your own actions. We've tried to help Joey with the Sporting Chance clinic and to be there to help him when he's needed it. But you need to see something in return."