Ovi Magazine Issue #12: Sexuality Published: 01-03-2006

Sex and referees
By Thanos Kalamidas
Do you know what death and sex have in common? Three things, they can both happen just anywhere, both end with a
groan and in both cases you are dead afterwards. Watching some sports events lately I found out that there is another one
who has somehow common things with sex. Football referees. They screw football, they screw football, and they screw
football.
As a principal I always defended
referees because in football they are
the third element aside with the two
teams. They are the human factor in
the game with their good times and
their mistakes. It’s logically impossible
for one man to see everything happening
between twenty two men in a
whole stadium. He can do as much as
his physical strength lets him do.
And I thought that that’s how far they
can go. But obviously they have far
more power since after over ninety
minutes of running up and down they
manage to screw football as well.
I don’t agree with this idea for a chip
that shows when a player does something,
I don’t agree either with the
idea of watching all the game through
videos. That will eliminate the human
factor from the game and what’s
next, mechanical players who are programmed
in fair play?
I hate what Maradona did in the 1986
game with England, scoring using his
hand and I hate watching some players
start falling from the center of the
stadium and landing just in front the
goalkeeper. I accept it as a part of the
game. I accept that the referee makes
mistakes as long his mistakes don’t
target the same players and the same
team all the time just because their union,
organization or whatever else you
want to call it has issues with one or
another player or team.
I find it unbelievable when a referee
publicly states that he doesn’t like
a player, naming the certain player
who is actually a historic member of
a team. I don’t understand a referee
who’s saying publicly that he is a fan
of a certain team. But again these are
things you get a lot lately. Sometimes
I think that referees become the ones
who failed as football players, and
with all these millions moving inside
football I can imagine that they feel a
bit left out.
I suppose there are ways to correct that
and after all what supposedly made
them become referees is their love of
the sport. So please find a way to stop
them screwing some teams and most
of all football.