Another weekend, another slew of wearying arguments about VAR and refereeing. At Bournemouth, Arsenal fans called the referee Robert Jones “a cheat” and chanted that the Premier League was “corrupt”. On social media, the outrage was even greater. Fans have always complained about referees, of course, but traditionally they called them “blind” and dismissed them as “wankers” or “bastards”. Then came the “You’re not fit to referee” song; the cries of systemic corruption, though, are relatively new.
Perhaps this is just the world we live in, one of distortions and paranoia, shaped by a diverse range of populist cynics from José Mourinho to Donald Trump, social media nurturing conspiracy theories which sprout from the fertile ground left as Covid retreated. Or perhaps there is something more complex going on.
