Football's red card.

Injustice is immeasurable, especially when you’re playing or watching football. There is incalculable suffering as a referee blithely waves on after a blatant foul or penalty. There is an innate acceptance and often schadenfreude when inexcusably bad decisions go your team’s way. Yet, the perceived visceral way we play the game is increasingly becoming more hostile and damaging. Football, particularly in the British Isles embraces the ruggedness and physicality of the sport with the civility of fair play and sportsmanship. Football has always received criticism through the ages of hooliganism, budget opulence and the continuous disappointment of our national side, yet the ungracious and sporting decadence is unfurling into an ugly and conscious stain across the tiers of our game.

Watching the Cricket World Cup on Sunday morning, the South African batsman Jacques Kallis asked England wicketkeeper Matt Prior if he had caught a ball he had edged behind. Prior acknowledged he had caught it and Kallis walked, a measure of trust and respect. Rugby Union and Rugby League are always highlighted as sports that aspire to a code of conduct through sport. The referee’s decision is final and players show reverence in every aspect of their performance.

Football headlines are driven by agendas like front page news, but some of the scenes we have seen of late portray a deeper vein of morose. Nick Hornby’s excellent Fever Pitch reflects on the additional passion injustice can bring, he also pointed out that 22-man brawls would be part of his ideal matches. This is the main argument that traditionalists use: if we interfere too much then the game loses that rawness that fans crave. It is true to an extent because what else would men have to talk about if things were more rigid. The problem is that such conservative dogmatism saw events like Heysel and Hillsborough unfold. News headlines and comment certainly give a platform for discussion but they are there to fill column inches, the same arguments arise every year.

We expect excitement at derby matches but the Old Firm game of last week showed the needless bellicosity. The problem with initiatives like the FA’s ‘Respect’ campaign is that there is so much money at stake that the FA cannot seek to uphold such programmes if the arbiters are unaccountable and problems themselves. Referees do not enamour themselves because of their turgid resolve but what are clubs and fans supposed to do if they keep on making mistakes? Technology is a potential game changer but there is again much debate on its induction and how pervasive its use will be.

Perhaps the main trouble we have in this country is the association with masculinity and war. Football is often characterised as a battle. British football as a culture on the terraces and on the pitch is entrenched with military fervour. Continentals deem our tactics as brave but stupid. Youngsters are taught from a young age the merits of winning not the art of playing. The statement a ‘man’s game’ holds resonance on British football pitches, but would mean nothing abroad. A change in this mentality would not turn us into a bunch of passive scarecrows; it would adjust the mindset to a degree of realism on the pitch and in the stands. Football does not necessarily need to convert to rugby and become gentrified, but it needs to recognise its fan base and duty to society. This culture of hostility and dishonesty is only polluting the beautiful game ugly.