The castration of football continues with cartoons

The prominence of the nose acquires a transcendental value in soccer, which does not rest in its desire to subject the game to an increasingly extreme surveillance, of a microscopic nature.

It corresponds to the intrusive and controlling obsession of this time.

Big Brother is here to stay, in increasingly sophisticated and threatening versions, from which football does not escape, nor does it pretend to.

In the name of technological efficiency and alleged millimetric justice, football has decided that the size of the nose matters.

Offsides are now measured by the length of the napia, sometimes after long minutes of debate in dark rooms where gentlemen who identify themselves as referees operate and dress as referees to officiate in front of monitors that reveal, in occasions by the size of the nose, the margin that separates a legal position from an anti-regulatory one.

Four years ago, at the World Cup in Russia, FIFA sanctified VAR as a new instrument of justice.

Or torture.

Since then we have known what a centimeter is worth in football, a game that was born irreverent —what else can a sport that glorifies the skill of unskillful legs be— and unconcerned about meticulous smallness.

More information

FIFA approves semi-automatic offside for the 2022 Qatar World Cup

Soccer chose the big, the wide spaces, the open sky and the long games.

Two halves of 45 minutes and it's over.

From the beginning, the rules were few and simple.

The

played in the streets with the same idea of ​​the rules as professional footballers, regardless of the numerous technological advances that football took advantage of to expand, from boots to the fabric of shirts, from the ball with strings to the lightweight ball, from the necessary sunlight to artificial lighting, from radio to television, from television to the internet.

Technology influenced football, but it did not assault it, it did not extract it from the stadium and transfer it to an external sphere of decision-making.

In short, it did not violate his nature, which was somewhat wild and disdainful of limits.

Among the cement of the cities there was nothing more similar to the dream of the great prairie than a field of grass, more or less 100 meters long and 65 wide.

That world ended with VAR, a fearsome invader that squared the matches and vampirized emotions.

Celebrating a goal became an act of recklessness, exposed to the admonition of the technological god and the high priests of arbitration.

Four years after the World Cup in Russia, the regulatory chaos is greater than ever, the confusion prevails in players and fans, the complaints multiply and the claim of divine justice is specified in the thick lines that settle the offsides.

Well, not even that.

It turns out that FIFA considers the measurement of offside imperfect with current technology.

If it has been mismeasured because the system is not accurate, the myth of VAR fairness is false.

Who knows how many promotions, relegations, eliminations and championships have been decided by a system that will be changed for another at the next World Cup in Qatar, this time with a sensor on the ball capable of instantly identifying the hit of the passer and the position of the receiver .

They promise that it will be faster, more accurate and more entertaining, with 3D animation, Pixar style, but not infallible.

Its margin for improvement has not been specified, but we know very well that it is the same as the gigantic margin of business that opens up every time these people deform and emasculate football.

Soon he won't even have a nose left.

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