The Fan Who Cried 'Scandal!'

Games 22-23, 2022-23

It's a sporting truth that the spectators on the touchline know the laws of the game much better than the qualified referee in the middle of the park. Accordingly, we hear from them all the time. In the second half of Sunday's game, following a corner kick cleared by the defending away team, I stay in position so that I'm standing directly in line with the defence as the home team plays the ball back into the danger area. Their number 6 is standing a yard offside, inside the 6-yard box, but moves back into an onside position to receive the pass.

He's about to turn and score when I blow my whistle and raise my arm, and of course he's frustrated. He blasts the ball out of play and curses, though not directly at me, so I don't show the yellow card - his team is five goals in arrears, so I let it go. I make the air traffic control gesture to indicate that he's come back to receive the ball from an offside position. Behind me, though, a lone spectator begins to bellow long and loud to the autumnal sky, finishing with the words, "That's an absolutely disgraceful decision! That's a scandal!" Among a crowd of maybe 60-70 people, I hope that at least one of them explains to him why he's shouting shite.

A seemingly perfect game, until the Angry Men appear...

Game 15, 2019-20

The assistant coach of the U17 home team is (guess what?) in a rage. It's just a few seconds after the final whistle, his team's lost 0-2, and both he and someone else who is probably nothing to do with the team come stalking off the dugout to Have Their Say. Something to do with a handball.

We all know that all coaches know
 these better than the ref.

I think they're referring to an incident in the fourth minute of injury time when an away team player deliberately stopped an attack with his hand. The trailing home team took an immediate free-kick, so I didn't bother with the yellow card. The offender was probably looking for the yellow card anyway to waste time. I try to explain this to Mr. Angry and his outraged chum.

Only, this is not what they're upset about. It's another incident which they claim I missed, and which should have been a penalty and a yellow card. The problem is this - I've just reffed an 80-minute game and made dozens of decisions. I genuinely don't know what incident they're all tearful and red in the face about.

When 22 moaning men shatter your confidence

Games 7-8, 2019-20

"This isn't a football game any more," states the home team's captain as he leaves the field. I've just shown him his second yellow card after he pulled back and brought down the away team's swift outside right as he hares towards the penalty area. The score is 0-4. Five minutes earlier I'd shown him his first yellow for his sullen, sarcastic query of, "Are we not playing offside today?" after the away team's fourth goal.

What now? Hungry? Lost dummy?
Or just another scandalous offside call?

No, it's not a game of football any more. It's a forum for petulant whiners. It's a maelstrom of bleating, skill-deprived tossers in acrylic uniforms. It's a platform for snorting, righteous, hot-eyed wankers viewing every call against them as a heinous affront to their dignity as human beings. This has nothing to do with a football game. Especially not among the home team, most of whom are shit (five minutes in, I predict a scoreline of 0-4).

Both teams are at it, though. All afternoon. Every foul called is not a foul. Every foul not called is, by contrast, a foul. Every offside decision called is not offside. Every call of 'play on' after an offside appeal is - you've guessed it - horrifically erroneous too. Of course it's offside. Four slow, stubby and rubicund defenders are screaming that it's offside, so it must have been...

Having less than a second to make a call on "Handball!"

Game 24, 2018-19

It's 0-2 with half time approaching, but the home team is on the attack. Their central midfielder takes a shot from around five yards outside the penalty area. It strikes the away team's central defender on the arm, which is in front of his body in a defensive, self-protective position. The defender is standing just inside the penalty area. The home team and all their followers scream "Handball!"

Model sportsman Franck Ribéry
 has spotted an infringement 

This is a direct result of the professional game's Video Assistant Referee. Of course, there have always been loud and righteous cries for 'Handball!' whenever the ball strikes a player's arm or hand, no matter from what distance or in what part of the field. But the calls have become markedly louder and more urgent in the past couple of years since VAR entered our lives. That's because slow-motion replays, examined several times with forensic keenness, have lead to many more decisions in favour of the attacking side. Many of these calls have been dubious at best, typified by Manchester United's spot-kick in the final minute of their Champions league last-16 game at Paris St. Germain, plus numerous bizarre VAR penalty awards for handball in the Bundesliga.

Video evidence should prompt reform of the offside law

I once wrote a short story narrated by a linesman who disallows the best goal of all time. It's a slick, 33-pass move, followed by a mazy, Messiesque dribble, then an audacious cross that ends with a spectacular, Ronaldoesque overhead kick. The linesman flags for offside, and the TV replays prove him correct. But only by a negligible margin of an inch or two. His decision is spot on, according to the rules, but he's globally vilified for being the man who cancels out what is inarguably the most brilliant move in the history of football. 

Lines the linesman cannot
see. Do we need them?

This story rolled around my head and was forgotten long before the introduction of video evidence, but now its moral again seems pertinent. In the Bundesliga this season, goals have been celebrated by fans, only for their joy to be annulled minutes later by a cold, factual look at the video evidence. Most famously, Cologne's very late 'winner' against Hanover was (correctly) overturned for offside by the video referee, while an earlier incident when a Cologne player was erroneously called offside in a goal-scoring position was ignored - presumably because it would have been impossible to bring play back (one of many flaws in the video evidence system).