WE'RE doomed. Call the polis. Get the fire brigade. The game we love so dearly is the victim of a Mafia contract. Assassins wait by the side-lines and in little huts somewhere in the Himalayas.
Association football, in its organised form, has given pleasure to millions of people all over the planet for almost 150 years. People in their deathbed have been known to rise up and shout "Goal"!
I confess light-heartedness in an attempt to stem the flow of tears, for I have just witnessed the future of football. And it stinks ("VAR now a weapon in the peasants, war on football", Herald Sport, June 21). As a dyed-in-the-wool football fan, I thought the Scotland women did us proud. Their skill at times was breath-taking, only naivety cost them a win in the end.
Although science has contributed to sport in many ways, football is not an exact science. When the goalkeeper saved the penalty no one, but no one, protested. Not the Argentinian players, nor assistant referees, nor the referee, even the fans of all colours in the stadium accepted it was a save. It was a penalty-kick save, end of story. That is the spirit of the game. However, from out of the fourth dimension, enter the geeks. An alien species unconnected with human emotion or natural justice. A signal is sent to the Artificial Intelligence robot with a whistle in its mouth. The goalkeeper's foot had moved a millimetre off the line. Impossible to be seen by the human eye. Rule blah-de-blah under section 24, paragraph 33 and a half, has been broken.
This is not sport as played by humans. Someone, somewhere is making a fortune constructing this abysmal system. Maybe, just maybe, because we can't afford it, we in Scotland may still possess the purest form of "the beautiful game".
Tom Gill, Erskine.
I WATCHED the heroic efforts of the Scottish women's World Cup team with my wife on television. We both shared the grief of a failed attempt to qualify for the later stages.
I would like to thank the team for uniting our nation. Now the women know what the men have been going through for decades.
Gerry Doherty, Waterfoot.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel