Wednesday night's events in Paris reminded us once again that football remains an unfair sport.

William Gallas' goal, bundled in from close range at the Stade de France, ultimately sent Les Bleus to the World Cup at the expense of the Republic of Ireland.

And as Thierry Henry's left hand made a crucial assist in that decisive moment, the goal should not have stood.

That must be the case, whether or not Henry deliberately palmed the ball to gain an advantage, or made contact with it in that way by accident.

In this instance, and in countless examples down the years, the referee and his assistants did not make the right call to disallow the goal.

Martin Hansson and his Swedish colleagues have already been heavily criticised for their failure to spot the handball - or if they did in fact spot it, take action.

But pointing the finger and possibly punishing Henry or Hansson for their roles in the incident will not improve the sport we all love, however satisfying such an approach might be to some people.

Instead, the guardians of the game themselves must be called to account, for the pursuit of fairness in football is a FIFA ideal and it is high time the governing body stood by that principle and acted upon it.

The saying goes that if it ain't broke, don't fix it - and some may take this view with football, despite evidence to the contrary.

But if you agree that one of football's worst flaws was highlighted yet again on Wednesday night, then attempting a repair job must be a pressing issue.

So we turn to the International Football Association Board, who decide the game's laws.

The IFAB comprises eight members - four representing the UK Home Nations, and four nominated by FIFA. A two-thirds majority is needed to pass any major decisions affecting rules, and with the FIFA quartet traditionally voting as a block, the federation's appointees can hold sway.

In the past, the IFAB has made several significant alterations to the game - the implementation of the offside law, goalkeeper substitution, punishment for tackles from behind and more.

But on the issue of video technology, no evidence has yet been presented to the board to convince them to introduce it in even the most basic of guises.

They halted the last planned experiments in favour of Michel Platini's Europa League extra officials idea and recently shelved any further discussions on the use of technology until their AGM in March 2011.

Despite the successful implemenation of modern science in sports like tennis and rugby league, IFAB claim it would 'dehumanise' football and Sepp Blatter insisted last year that it was his responsibility to "maintain universality... (for) the 260million people directly involved in the game."

These reasons for inaction smack more of fear and possessiveness from football's leaders, rather than an enlightened approach to the quest for fair play.

FIFA should be assisting the inventors who want to find a solution to the problems we see every week, rather than sidelining them in the way British mathematician Paul Hawkins was dismissed.

At the least, his Hawkeye system warranted a worthwhile trial to assess how effective it could be in practice.

Hawkins told World Football Insider earlier this month: "If you're trying to run the biggest sporting event in the world, and the purpose of the event is to find out who the best football team in the world is, then you need to go to good efforts to ensure the officiating of that event is to a standard which puts the destiny as much as possible in the hands of the players, rather than the officials."

In the case of Henry's misdemeanour, you can read that last part literally - but the truth is FIFA's efforts have not been good and as a result, standards of fairness and justice in football remain below par in the beautiful game.