Cheats never prosper but football does...

I'm a sports fan. It doesn't matter what sport it is, watching or participating I'll give it a go unless it involves throwing yourself out of a plane, contorting in dark, confined spaces below ground or scaling mountains with little more than carabiners and crampons. Truth be told, I'm scared of heights and claustrophobic, oh and terrified of snakes as well. It's no wonder then that the snake pit scene in the Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark that manages to combine all of these activities and fears still gives me nightmares some 28 years on since I first saw it.

The joy of sport is about competition, speed, skill, agility, mental strength, unpredictable outcomes, teamwork, winning, participation and perhaps most importantly, sportsmanship. Which is why on Wednesday evening it was so disappointing to see someone who has for years encapsulated everything good about sport damage their reputation in an instant. When Thierry Henry decided to teach the much maligned England rugby team a thing or two about ball handling, he immediately wrote his name into the history books alongside Diego 'Hand of God' Maradona. I understand the arguments in his defence about reflex reaction, that it all happened very quickly but in my book whatever way you look at it, it's cheating. Mr Va Va Voom will forever have a reputation as a cheat.

At the CIPD annual conference that took place in Manchester this week, I was involved in a number of discussions about employer branding, psychological contracting and corporate values which led me to thinking about the role these have in football. What's the psychological contract that Christiano Ronaldo has struck with Real Madrid, what was it that attracted him to his new employers and what impact does that have on the other employees at the Santiago Bernabeu?

The deal on the part of his employers is reasonably straight forward - they expect high levels of performance, goals, trophies, revenue from merchandising, teamwork and an ambassadorial approach from their 'Galactico'. Did Ronaldo join Real for money, status, the heritage of the club, the chance to win trophies, a fresh challenge or all of the aforementioned? We'll probably never know the main factors of his 'deal' but we know that it exists. The real question is, "How much do football clubs work to build a mutually beneficial psychological contract"? When you're paying multi-millions of pounds and euros for a footballer, you'd hope it would be a lot because retaining and engaging them raises the employment stakes to almost unimaginable levels that are seldom replicated in the 'real' (not Real) commercial world. It's often said that it takes footballers a season to adjust to a new club - perhaps understanding the terms of the unwritten contract and developing a tailored induction programme may deliver a quicker return on investment.

And what impact does an employee earning more in a week than most will earn in 10 years or more have on those in administration, catering, hospitality and ground staff functions at the club? The answer is not a lot. The attraction at the lower end is likely to be based as much on the corporate brand and its values as it is any logical or well formulated employer brand. But that's the unique world of football as it is today.

Unfortunately it is money and success that are more important than values in football and the reason why cheating will continue to undermine the principles of the sport.