Outraged Irish fans join Facebook group

OUTRAGED Irish soccer fans turned keyboard warriors last night, within minutes of the full-time whistle.

Over 1,000 people quickly joined up to the hastily set-up Facebook group entitled ‘Thierry Henry should apologise to Ireland’ within a half an hour of the whistle while Twitter users flooded the Barcelona striker’s account with impassioned messages.

Meanwhile bookmaking giants Paddy Power are to refund €250,000 after the Republic of Ireland’s controversial World Cup exit last night.

France booked their spot in South Africa next summer after a William Gallas goal in extra time.

However former Arsenal star Thierry Henry was shown by television replays to have handled the ball in the build up.

The bookmaking firm are refunding over €110,000 to punters who backed Ireland to qualify for next year’s finals and are refunding a further €140,000 on last night’s game after they pledged to refund all losing first/last goalscorer, correct score & scorecast bets placed on the match if Ireland won the game in 90-minutes.

Paddy Power said: “Not only did FIFA change the rules to protect the big teams, but then we drew France and Henry ruins our chances of a place in the World Cup.

“After all that we’re only too happy to put our hand in our pocket and hopefully ease some of the pain for our patriotic punters”