"World Cup underway, and under the spectre of the all seeing eye"

Part 1 of a mini-series of readings from my very first self-published book "Diary From the 2022 FIFA World Cup" and the very first day of the World Cup as VAR makes an early introduction into proceedings, allowing me a mini rant as to this dystopian intrusion into the "Beautiful Game".

More episodes in this mini-series to follow. Until then, here's a handy link to a book I'm incredibly proud of, other ways in which you can support me, and an extract from the chapter being read in this video:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C2SG69L3

https://www.patreon.com/TheBlackfordBookClub
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"Well we’re off. The carnival of the bizarre has commenced in Qatar and it took just two minutes for the soul suckers and bureaucratic basket cases running VAR to spoil everyone’s enjoyment.

What larks!

As television commentators around the world no doubt echoed the BBC with and a celebration for the “first goal of the World Cup”, after 3 or 4 minutes of everyone staring at their shoes they decided this goal, this very first goal of the World Cup had been a trick of the light after all and the all seeing eye decided we hadn’t seen the first goal of the World Cup and that great piece of instantaneous, live sporting art and theatre simply had to be deleted.

It just never happened.

Ain’t that just swell?

We can all point to the fact that the goal scorer of the non-goal, the now deleted, never happened, don’t believe the lying eyes that actually saw the ball hit the back of the net in real time goal, Enner Valencia, would score two further goals before the game reached its halfway point, but it’s still criminally against the spirit of the beautiful game to have disallowed his first “goal” and the very epitome of the slow decaying death of football worldwide.

After the goal that wasn’t, Valencia, and the team he captained to an easy victory against this year’s host nation, all crowded together in a kind of celebratory prayer circle to toast the sheer joy of scoring the very first goal of an already horrifically tainted and distasteful World Cup.
But the all seeing eye in the sky said no after much hanging around, and the killing of a once previously instantaneous and immediate game stone dead continues.

Surrounded by their blue and red crayons of doom, VAR suggested a player's knee (yes, his knee!) was offside, and rather than the majesty of the immediate joy of a goal and the spirit of a vibrant game, we instead all hung around waiting for a ghoul in a suit to press a few buttons and be the killjoy of a system that should be buried in the very centre of middle earth and treated as hazardous waste for all eternity".

As you can see, I don't have a lot of love for VAR!

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