We recently remarked on Four FourTwo’s love of a good list here, and in the September 2004 edition, they were at it again.
This time, they were looking at ‘101 Ways To Improve Football’, a pretty exhaustive list that took to task many of the ills that they reckoned were blighting the beautiful game.
There was plenty in there that most football fans would agree with. Automatic sending-off for diving, forcing players to declare their earnings, bringing back the Adidas Tango (the king of all footballs), making the richest clubs pay a fat cat tax.
Equally there were some wise aspirations that show little sign of being met – employing some educated pundits on national telly is seemingly perennially impossible.
And while the “Everyone: act against homophobia in football” idea was particularly laudable, it didn’t sit too well with the idea of giving pink cards for “acts of effeminate behaviour – leading offenders to receive a post-season televised makeover from ‘Queer Eye For The Straight Guy’s intrepid style team”…
Perhaps the most significant part of the whole article was what wasn’t there – there was no suggestion that VAR would be a good idea.
You can check out all 101 ideas here.
