A couple of weeks ago I was playing football for my Sunday League team, against some stunningly over-competitive old boys of Worcester College, Oxford. The second half of that sentence is totally irrelevant to the story, it’s just therapeutic to emphasise what utter gits they were.

Midway through the first-half, we trailed 2-1 when one of our forwards struck the ball into the face of an opposition defender. The referee – 32 stone, partially blind and with a mouth like a 15th century sewer – was unsurprisingly not in the best place to see what happened and awarded a penalty to howls of protest. I had had a pretty clear view, and it being a Sunday league match, stepped in and told the ref the truth. He overturned the decision, we lost 5-1, and at half-time I was bawled out by a couple of my team-mates for my honesty.

You’ve guessed it. That whole story was a tenuous attempt to compare myself to Thierry Henry. ‘Le Hand of God’ has taken up more column inches than X Factor this week, and at the heart of it, I would guess, is the original ‘there is no right answer’ dilemma. Just as my football team were split down the middle over my big honest mouth, so the question of whether Henry should have confessed to the handball that knocked Ireland out of the World Cup has divided the public.

Everyone in my office, from my female publisher to the cleaner, has been talking about Henry in the last few days – and it is sad that one of the few times outside of a major event that sport touches non-fans is over an issue of morality. But sport is always most interesting when it is about more than pure results, and that is why ‘Le Hand of God’ has provoked such a reaction. It has made us think directly about ourselves – about those split-second reactions that determine who we are and what paths our lives take. What would I have done? Am I good or bad? Opportunistic or exploitative? Honest or unambitious?

Forget the referee. Forget technology. This is, above all, a human story. Henry handled it – he has admitted that. He was an idol in this country after years of success at Arsenal, a man who had spoken out countless times against foul-play, and a man whose reputation had afforded him the benefit of the doubt in those previous instances where his integrity had been questioned. That reputation is gone now with Ireland’s World Cup, his ’smirk’ as infamous as Ronaldo’s wink.

But picture the alternative. ‘Honest Henry’ speaks out. France crash out. 62 million Frogs are denied their World Cup fix and the French economy suffers to the tune of £1bn. Welcome home Thierry.

That’s your option. You have half-a-second to make up your mind. What would you do?

Sam Collins is website editor of thewisdencricketer.com