Feasting on UEFA’s comedy of errors at Euro 2012

This was Michel Platini's day from hell, starting with a brunch of opprobrium and finishing with late supper of egg on face.

First, the main course. For the one per centres atop the global sports pyramid, that usually means chateaubriand in some ritzy five-star restaurant. For the UEFA president on Tuesday at Euro 2012, it was the end of the fifth-official system he championed, sunk in the seconds it took for TV replays to clearly show Marko Devic's shot was in the goal before it was neatly hooked out by England's John Terry, while that fifth official stood a few yards away watching.

The trains in these kind of competitions tend to run on time, and that was the goal-line technology special pulling into the net at Donetsk, right on schedule, and steamrolling right over Le President, and the status quo.

[Martin Rogers: Calls for goal-line technology after the Ukraine denied goal vs. England]

The difference this time, as opposed to all those other times before at big tournaments dating back to the seeming prehistory of 1966 (Lego version here , official version with somber orchestral background here), is that the technology outside the stadium is so far advanced that those TV replays and freeze frames were immediately being sent around the world, parsed and digested and spit out in can-you-believe-it tweets and updates within seconds. It would seem to be Platini's time to channel his FIFA counterpart "A-ha!" moment two years ago in South Africa, when England's Frank Lampard's goal was not allowed and Sepp Blatter, reversing his own ground, grovelled up to the English that change was coming - and finally, it should be there by the 2014 World Cup (maybe).

The hows and maybes - even the whens - will be kicked around July 5, when the IFAB meets post-Euro to talk details in a debate that is much advanced from 2010 and seemingly ready to go.

Now, in hindsight, Blatter tweeted Tuesday night that the Ukraine goal was good - and UEFA has also admited that they were denied a goal. Maybe this will be Platini's "come to Jesus" moment?

As for the earlier brunch hour, it was a gong show to rival a Toronto FC highlight reel. UEFA's €100,000 fine of Denmark's Nicklas Bendtner for showing off his ambush-market-sponsor's underwear was a case of desperately poor optics in light of the lighter fines doled out by UEFA for racist behaviour at this tournament and events earlier in the year. But unlike the evening show, Platini wasn't left on an island - Bendtner exposed his own threadbare principles in consenting to the farce in the first place. The bookmaker's website behind it all paid Bendtner's fine while tut-tutting about UEFA's #priorities, and claimed the Danish striker did it merely "for fun" (and if you believe that, you're welcome to go halfers with me on my Holland to win ticket). And then there's the Danish team itself, sponsored by a rival bookmaker, levying its own fine on their player.

[PHOTOS: England vs. Ukraine | Sweden vs. France]

As ever, it's impossible to feel any kind of pity for Platini. This is the same fellow who blasted Ukrainian hoteliers as "bandits" for having the temerity to raise their rates when UEFA's jamboree came to town. This is the same organization that will bloat this tournament to 24 teams in four years' time - in an age of European austerity, here's your anomaly, one of the few growth sectors going - adding an extra 16-team knockout round and even the president admits it'll take away some of the tight margins that make it the best test in the game.

Enjoy this one. It may be the last Euro of its kind aesthetically, but with the Platinis and Blatters of the day in charge, these competitions will never fail to deliver controversy and comedy.

Follow Chris Young on Twitter @HighParkCy.