It's not me, it's you!

Could it be that the longest love affair of a fast approaching middle-aged man’s life is about to come to an end?

No, not my adoration for my right hand, something much more important.

I have been in love with football since before I can remember. My first bicycle in 1980, my first kiss in 1989 (yes I was 15, the other thing wasn't at the same time), my first car in 1992. All momentous occasions and all easily picked out from a 35-year backdrop.

Football, though, has always been there. Part of the furniture, available to be turned to in times of worry, a provider of joy when nothing else seemed to be going right. Impossible to put a date on when it started. When I first kicked a ball or when I first looked on bewildered at a Pat Jennings save on the television. I was always a goalkeeper, part of a strange breed, maybe that is why I don't have many friends. But better to have no friends than be one of those selfish bastards of strikers!

When Thierry Henry’s audition for the Harlem Globetrotters resulted in an injustice that threatened to turn into a diplomatic incident I was left pondering my future without the life-long friend I had come to rely on.

It wasn’t the fact that Ireland hadn’t qualified for the World Cup. I hadn’t really expected them to do so. It was more than that, a question of morals. How could I go on supporting something that seemingly held morality in such disregard?

Now we have the World Cup, and as I've said I'm not that interested. But every time I seem to turn it on there is another selfish little prick diving or cheating.

Things have been slowly simmering for some time. It's not like this is a new phenomenon. Cristiano Ronaldo, has been responsible for some of the most despicable acts of cheating we have seen in some time. Every time he fell over a blade of grass that seemed to have been armed with a freshly sharpened scythe that little voice called conscience nagged away at any celebration from the resulting goal.

But yet I still think he's the best player in the world. Better than that litte cunt Messi, who seems to be immune to people seeing him cheat and dive. Perhaps it's his ridiculous haircut. Or the fact he looks like an oompa-loompa.

A couple of weeks prior to Henry’s display the then England captain, John Terry (the cunt), had almost removed the shirt from a Manchester United forward while pulling him down in the penalty box. Similar to Henry’s situation the referee didn’t see it but, unlike the French Captain, Terry afterwards insisted he did not do it, despite video evidence to the contrary.

Surely a clear-cut case of a footballer being caught out in an indefensible situation? Seemingly not. Any posts on the BBC’s website suggesting Terry had cheated and then lied about it were removed within seconds.

Indeed after that match the Daily Mirror’s chief sports writer wrote a column praising Terry for his leadership in what could be a decisive victory. When I asked him why he had not brought up the act of breaking the rules, the silence was deafening. He wasn't so silent once before when I told him that he was completely wrong about Gary Neville and GNev was in fact a useless little twat who only got a game because he was a bigger tout than whichever historical figure was a big tout. (I'm not big into history as I'm not a Liverpool fan).

Politicians may, deservedly some might argue, get a hard time from the media but at the very least if they are caught with their hand in the cookie jar we expect them to be asked about it.

But where in the football publications can you find players being simply called a cheat? You see allegedly this and allegedly that with quotation marks around the bad words. Running scared are the papers? They don't seem to be when the footballer slips and accidently sticks his dick in some wench that isn't his wife. So why don't they do it when they cheat on the pitch.

Things are looking bleak. My relationship is floundering and I need re-assurance that it is worth trying to save.

Maybe I should go straight to the top. God’s representative for football on earth, head of Fifa Sepp Blatter. Perhaps unsurprisingly my requests for an interview with him were met with derision. But then he's busy sorting out video technology isn't he?

I'll have to look at it psychologically. Football is like love. It makes no sense. It's compulsive and like all compulsive behaviour logic takes a back seat. Fans will seldom admit when their team does something wrong and the majority of the time when they are shown concrete evidence of unacceptable sporting behaviour they will resort to child like arguments of why it is acceptable.

Pointing out reasons like ‘well he did it first’ and such like are what the norm.

So if I am to remain in my relationship I will have to accept the fact that it is going to be an unhealthy one. Biased and one-sided and probably with me as the one to always suffer as a result. Sounds a bit like marriage.

For the time being then it looks like morals will have to be put to one side where football is concerned because it does not look like anything will be changing soon. Besides what other choice to I have? Is there any other sport where cheating is not rampant?

Maybe golf. But Tiger hasn't exactly covered that in glory has he. Unlike all the pornstars he met.