Ballade for Football Referees

 

The fans cry out that judgement’s grown absurd,
The whistle’s wrong, that VAR has lost its way;
The coaches claim the game’s being interred,
Each call a wound that tilts the match astray.
Yet truth is hard to glimpse in such a fray:
A fleeting touch, a force no eye can gauge,
Momentum felt and pain we can’t assay,
And still we howl at referees with rage.

We learn too young that rules can be deferred:
A sidestep here, a nudge to win the day.
We edge ahead, insisting we’re preferred,
And call it fair when others must give way.
We think it harmless, just a slight foray,
Rightful entitlement to assuage.
We clutch our bonus slice as lawful pay,
And still we howl at referees with rage.

We stretch our share, then ask the world to stay
Just and fair when our trespass is upstaged;
We take from gentle souls each day:
They bear the burdens we’ve arranged.
We never see the cost we make them pay;
We never note whose anger we’ve engaged.
We want our comfort bought from their dismay,
And still we howl at referees with rage.

Envoi
Prince, fairness stings when greed becomes our gauge;
Where grasping more becomes our heritage.
Sport shows the truth we avoid at every age
Of why we howl at referees with rage.