Virtual assistance for referees has drawn complaints from managers, players and fans. What has it done to the beautiful game?
When
Manchester City scored a brilliant winning goal in the last seconds of a Uefa
Champions League quarter-final against Spurs in the spring of 2019, at least two spectators who were present at the game abandoned watching.
Out in the stands, an overcoated City fan hurried for the exits, delighted with his last-gasp win and keen to beat the rush home. At the same time, down on the substitutes’ bench, Moussa Sissoko, a Spurs player who’d been withdrawn through injury, was so distraught that he turned his back on the game and hobbled to his dressing room alone.