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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Sport
Beau Dure

The World Cup of Calvinball: Fifa’s hasty changes turn refereeing into a free-for-all

Referee Wilton Sampaio shows a red card to Themba Zwane during a World Cup match.
Referee Wilton Sampaio shows a red card to Themba Zwane during a World Cup match. Photograph: Yuri Cortéz/AFP/Getty Images

In the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, the titular characters occasionally played a game known as Calvinball.

The rules were amorphous. At any moment, something like a “30-yard base wicket” may become part of the game. Determining a “winner” was besides the point, as the score for one game was given as “Q to 12.” The fictional, farcical sport entered public consciousness and was even cited by US supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in a blistering dissent last year.

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