Italy's Marco Materazzi falls on the pitch after being head-butted by France's Zinedine Zidane (R) during their World Cup 2006 final soccer match in Berlin July 9, 2006. [Reuters]

For FIFA the award - voted for by journalists before half time in the final game - will be an unwelcome embarrassment.

The organisation has been battling to outlaw violence on the pitch - as well as racism. But with a typically-Gallic shrug of the shoulders Zidane's home nation gave him a hero's welcome - led by President Jacques Chirac.

The politician was positively beaming as he chatted with the player, who announced he would retire after the championship, before a lunch at the Elysee palace in Paris.

For a brief moment it even appeared the sportsman, who had been playing in what was to be his last game as a professional player, was demonstrating just how he executed that infamous headbutt.

With a somewhat untimely tribute, Chirac praised the player as a 'virtuoso' and 'a genius of world football'.

He continued: 'You are also a man of heart, commitment, conviction. That's why France admires and loves you.'

Earlier he said: 'I would like to express all the respect that I have for a man who represents at the same time all the most beautiful values of sport, the greatest human qualities one can imagine, and who has honoured French sport and, simply, France.'

French manager Raymond Domenech also played down the fuss about the head butt - saying Zidane was the victim of rough treatment from his Italian opponents throughout the final in Berlin's Olympic Stadium.

The player is fiercely proud of his family¡¯s Arab background - and his mother who struggled with almost no money to bring up five children.

The family were originally from the village of Taguemoune, in the remote hills of Algeria.

The married father-of-four describes himself as a 'non-practising Muslim'.

Zidane¡¯s father and mother, Sma?l and Malika, were almost unimaginably poor.

They first moved to Paris where there was little work and even less money and so the family moved to Marseille, on the south coast.

It was there that they struggled desperately to bring up five children on a tough council estate. His background means this is not the first time Zidane has endured racial slurs.

Soon after France¡¯s 1998 World Cup win - when Zidane scored two goals - Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the Front National, was complaining about the racial origins of the France team, singling out Zidane as 'a son of French Algeria'.

His comment was carefully loaded. The implication was Zidane was either a colonial lackey or a traitor to the country of his father's birth.

It is well known that Zidane's skill is paired with the potential for rage, most notably when he headbutted Jochen Kientz of Hamburg during a Champions League match in 2000, earning him a five-match suspension.

Defender Materazzi was keeping his mouth firmly closed yesterday.

But his father Giuseppe, said: 'I spoke with my son very briefly on the telephone after the match.

'He didn't tell me what Zidane had said and he just said that I should enjoy this moment and he would tell me everything that happened when he got back.

'He told me that he had been provoked as he has been throughout his career and throughout the last two years.'

According to reports in France, Zidane's mother is seriously ill at the moment and had to go to hospital on Sunday morning.

Other French players have told journalists that their colleague was particularly sensitive because of this mother's condition.

The lauding of Zidane as a hero in France and his naming by FIFA as player of the tournament is in stark contrast to the treatment experienced by England players Wayne Rooney and David Beckham after they were sent off at critical junctures in different World Cups.

Rooney is said to have been widely regarded by members of the FA hierarchy as having acted petulantly before being red carded in England's match against Portugal during this year's tournament.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter also backed the referee who sent off Rooney, adding: "The referee was within touching distance of the players and he took the decision according to what he witnessed."

David Beckham was widely criticised after his sending-off against Argentina in the 1998 finals for kicking out at Diego Simeone. He was on the receiving end of abuse from fans wherever he played for Manchester United for a considerable period afterwards.