No sport treats loyal fans with more contempt than football
Truth will be available in the Champions League next week — unless you’ve bought a ticket. Although VAr will be in operation, replays will not be seen. Well, not by you, the paying customer inside the stadium. At home, they will know exactly what is going on.
It’s just you, the ones who have paid money for tickets, and maybe flights and hotels, too, who will be in the dark. You can’t handle the truth, apparently. Instead, a graphic — a cartoon, basically — will tell you what is going on.
that’s how much football trusts and values its most loyal consumers. Lucky it’s not glove puppets, really.
‘ Security implications’ are behind uEFA’s decision. they do not believe supporters can see a replay of a controversial incident without rioting.
What year do they think this is? We have moved on from the days when fans had to wait for a Pathe newsreel or late-night highlights to find out what happened in the match. the invention of mobile phones gave fans in the ground a direct line to a friend in front of the television.
Social media has cut out even that middleman. Now, the verdict is instantaneous. Fans go on twitter and see a clip, or update a live feed, or they’re streaming the match as well as watching it. What secrets do uEFA think they are protecting?
Everyone now knows when the referee’s stuffed up. In many ways that’s the saving grace — try as they might, the authorities cannot keep you uninformed for long. It’s the principle that is at stake here, more than the reality.
At West ham on Monday night, linesman Simon Beck missed an offside against James Milner that led to Liverpool’s first goal. replays made that obvious immediately and when, 10 minutes later, Beck flagged against Liverpool, huge ironic cheers went around the arena. they knew. they all knew. they didn’t need a replay to spread the word.
Anyway, had VAr been in place, and the fans seen the same footage as the video official, what would have been the problem? the goal would have been disallowed, no doubt of that, and, what, a riot would then have occurred? really? Of course not.
ThE West ham fans would have seen justice done so would have been perfectly happy, if a little scornful of Beck — which they were anyway — and the Liverpool end would have known exactly why their goal was ruled out. Not even the most one-eyed red could have disputed it. So what’s the problem, where’s the riot? the only way there could be dissatisfaction caused by viewing VAr would be in very marginal cases — and it could be argued that the most marginal calls shouldn’t be judged this way in the first place. If it’s marginal, surely, the on-field decision holds sway, as happens in cricket.
But the insults to the intelligence do not end there. With seconds to go, the fourth official signalled three minutes of injury time. Yet when it got to 90 minutes, the clock displayed on the giant scoreboard stopped.
this isn’t a London Stadium issue, by the way. this happens at every ground in the country. So volatile and untrustworthy are football supporters that they are not even allowed to know how long there is to go; as if timepieces
have not been with us since the 16th century; as if every smartphone does not have a stopwatch function; as if we do not all possess an innate sense of time, certainly when measuring a handful of minutes.
Is there another sport where those attending the match are treated with such contempt?
Cricket lovers know how many overs remain, even in a Test match. The clock counts down in basketball and the NFL. Rugby supporters know when 80 minutes are up.
Yet the conclusion of the match remains a mystery in football. In case, what? In case fans start whistling? They are going to do that anyway.
The moment their team is under pressure they are going to remind the referee it’s time to go home; unless their team is already losing, of course, when they favour a version of next goal wins it.
Fans are like that. They’re biased. But they’re not idiots. There’s a difference, which is what UEFA will never understand.