An ambassador from the year 4798, sent as a goodwill mission from the former United Kingdom, known as England and Wales since 2022, has reported ‘encouraging progress’ in getting football fans to accept VAR.
In a wide-ranging presentation, Ambassador Thaaarg spoke of fans of English clubs “starting to come round” to the idea of TV assisted decision making.
Whilst other forms of technology, including human teleportation, total cybermetrics and the replacement of coaches by Giant Brain Technology have been readily accepted by opening up the Premier League up to vast new revenue streams, trying to get fans to accept a system that enables a referee to instantly detect a player in an offside position by less than one micrometer is still described as “Killing the game”
He told a news conference that “We are due to have another meeting next year to discuss ways in which we can get English fans to accept VAR,” he added. “But we feel that it is still an uphill task.
“Although the technology is there – it’s broadly the same as that used to calculate sun spot radiation harvesting - is accurate to within 0.0000003% and can be transmitted to the communication implant in the referees cerebrum in less than 1 nanosecond – many remaining English fans and pundits, including Alan Shearer’s 47th lineal descendant complain that it “slows the game down a bit,” he said.
When pressed on the term ‘remaining English fans and pundits’ the Ambassador looked awkward for a moment, before announcing: “by the order of the Earth Council of Elders, I cannot reveal information to you that may change your history, even if it might save many millions of lives.”
He then gave a furtive look at his teleportation band, before adding in a low voice: “Don’t trust Jose Maurinho.”
The Ambassador remained for a while to chat about football with journalists, and was asked whether the England team still existed as an entity in the far future.
“Oh yes,” he replied. “England still has a team, and we all know the song. “Two thousand, eight hundred and thirty two years of hurt, and all that.”