Imagine if pundits and fans spoke out with same self-righteous regularity against structural racism that they do against dotted lines being drawn from footballers’ armpits
Full disclosure: I don’t really have a position on VAR. If I did, I certainly wouldn’t share it in public. Occasionally I have been asked on to a podcast or television show where it is tacitly explained that some sort of opinion on VAR will be required and I have just about managed to feign the required outrage.
It’s quite easy, once you practise a bit: just tick off as many of the following words and phrases as possible – “Stockley Park”, “Mike Riley”, “not what the technology was brought in for”, “armpit”, “killing the emotion” – while gradually winding your voice into ever tighter coils of fury. Finally you let a big, exasperated sigh into the microphone and observe, with a tinge of theatrical sadness: “It’s just a mess, Geoff, it really is.”
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