So that's Zinedine Zidane's reward for the shameful scenes that tarnished the biggest game in football.

I nearly choked on my bacon sarnie at around 10am on Monday when FIFA announced that the one-time French talisman had won the Golden Ball.

If you didn't know what the Golden Ball is, it's the award given to the finest player in the tournament. And to that description they should now add the word "allegedly".

I don't care when the decision was taken, they should have changed it. If there are rules here then this was an exception.

If Cristiano Ronaldo can miss out on being top young player for diving all over the place, then what on earth happened here.

It would be an understatement to say the decision to allow Zidane to take this award smacks of double standards. Quite simply it's a shocking choice - one that shames football and the World Cup.

It's not even like Zizou was so outstanding that the panel could have felt he merited the award in any circumstances.

Take out that one wonder show against Brazil and he was distinctly average bar converting a couple of crucial penalties.

I'm not even sure his footballing displays put him in the top three, never mind set him apart from the rest.

You get the feeling most decisions at this World Cup were geared towards well-known superstars, and based on little other reason.

Some of the man of the match decisions were baffling, and now this.

Just answer me this for example: How can the disappointing Luis Figo get into the All-Star squad while Fabio Grosso - another Golden Ball candidate for me - can't even make it into the best 23.

But even that sort of decision pales into insignificance when you look at the selection of Zidane on Monday.

What he did in extra-time in Berlin on Sunday night has no place on a football pitch.

Take out those Argentine histrionics back in 1990 and it was the ugliest moment ever in a World Cup final.

Whatever Materazzi said - and it must have been pretty offensive - Zidane is surely old enough not to react in the way he did.

He's always had that darker side to his game, but you hardly expected it to resurface in the biggest game of all, and his final game of all.

The sad thing is that Zidane will be remembered for this, maybe more so than all the years of brilliance that preceded it. Now there's no chance to atone.

But then again, maybe that's just what he deserves.

For while all he has is a Golden Ball that means effectively nothing in my book, the real champion of Germany 2006 has a lot more.

Fabio Cannavaro, a man who performend brilliantly for every minute of Italy's epic run to victory, picked up something far better. A little trophy called the World Cup.