Ten most irritating things about modern football
Football is a broad church with room for a wide variety of opinions. In practice, that means we have all developed bespoke lists of the things we hate most about it.
There are stimuli everywhere, from the many betting adverts which punctuate the game at professional level to the shoes favoured at any time by Michael Owen.
Of course, we will all have our personal bugbears and niche fury-triggers, so we invite you to add yours in the comments section.
For now, try these 10 for size.
10. Silly socks
Objectively unimportant, still extremely grating. Most footballers now wear vandalised socks snipped off at the foot, all the better to grip their boots with, in theory. Many cut (or ask an underling to cut) holes on the backs of socks to house their enormous, precious calf muscles. This grinds the gears for two reasons, the first is the sense that most players only do this because a couple of bigger boys kicked off a trend. If Jude Bellingham threw himself over a cliff would you do that, too? Secondly: who do you think you are? Too big for socks? Too special for stockings? Grow up.
9. Oversized benches
Without wanting to get too Monty Python Yorkshireman, there was a time when a bench of three seemed gratuitous. How many subs does a team really need? Of course the answer to every question in football is “More!” so in 1996 Premier League benches were extended to five subs per team. We are now at a bloated nine subs, with five allowed over 90 minutes, albeit spread across a maximum of three breaks in play. This means more disjointed games, a greater advantage to the bigger clubs with greater squad depth and extra admin work for anoraks who still compile statistics by hand.
8. Profit and sustainability rules
Probably more tedious than irritating. But so tedious it becomes irritating, like a night out with Jake Humphrey. Definitely irritating if you support a team whose owners wish to spend some money and find themselves prevented from doing so. Mostly by clubs who have benefited from such spending in the past and are now attempting to pull up the drawbridge. Annoying not for its impact on the sport but because it forces fans to become literate in concepts like squad cost ratios, top to bottom anchoring and contract amortisation. All of which should be things you are paid to think about, not swotting up on like a nervous GCSE student.
7. Leftfield kick-off times
Just such a faff. You think you’ve got your head around the rough idea: 12.30 Saturday, a cursory nod to the trad 3pm slot, 5.30pm, then Sundays at 2pm, 4.30pm. Then you encounter the entirely unnecessary outliers. Who wants an 8.15pm midweek game? Why do non-Eastern European Europa League games, seemingly picked at random, sometimes start at teatime? Who was crying out for Leicester vs Brentford on a Friday night? Also – what channel is any of this on? Answer, invariably: not the first six you try.
6. Pedantic refereeing
We come to football for flow, for simplicity, for rules we broadly understand. We come to football because it is not rugby. So there are few greater buzzkills than a referee using their whistle like a Floridian spring breaker at their first EDM festival. There was a brief and glorious spell in the Premier League a couple of years ago when the directive seemed to be “allow play to proceed other than in instances of GBH”. Too often across the sport now we see promising games broken up by fussy incursions from officials, with the nagging feeling that some are trying to draw attention to themselves.
5. Inane punditry
There is a good argument that we are living through the golden age of football coverage. Unfortunately halcyon days can expose the dregs of the previous era. When you have so many insightful, energetic and engaging voices analysing football it makes the drivel hard to stomach. Naming no names, it is unacceptable to be trotting out clichés (“you can’t get beaten on your near post,” “he’ll be disappointed with that,” “goals change games” etc.) and even less palatable when they come from the mouth of the ex-pros who surely, at least in theory, have years of more pertinent insight to draw from.
4. Stadium music
Hard to think of a more egregious incursion into the bond between fans and clubs than the music blasting before and after big matches. This reaches its insulting pinnacle when teams hoist a trophy, likely the highlight of a lifetime of support for some fans, not a moment which requires Sweet Caroline. Inevitably this happens most in the corporate happy place of neutral stadiums.
When Leicester hoisted the Premier League trophy in 2016 at home it was greeted by the sound of their fans, thousands of dreams coming true. As it should be. For Wembley et al: At least turn it down slightly if you do not have the courage to just turn it off.
3. Toxic fandom
In the era when match-attending fans were the presumed target audience for football there was a loose understanding: we might all support different teams but we are all fundamentally engaged in the same activity. Now the uniting behaviour is consuming football at the rage-inducing distance of TV and social media. Any fragile camaraderie has gone, replaced by endless, exhausting vitriol. Everything is a conspiracy against your club. No insult is off limits. It is all so wearingly serious. Not to get too misty-eyed about an era when nasty blokes behaved abhorrently, but sometimes you yearn for the 1980s. Alright, perhaps not. But certainly the early-to-mid 90s.
2. Dubious injuries
Pathetic dives have been happening for so long now it is possible to frame them as fun. Put them in the class of comedy misses or referees falling over. The new threat is skilful exaggeration of injury which cons officials and fans. Most games now involve a standard foul which prompts a performance of harm so severe it necessitates a break in play.
Astonishingly, after checks from the referee and concerned team-mates the physio is not required, because that would mean leaving the pitch. Shock horror, such moments usually come to teams holding a lead looking to break up play or come at a convenient time for an al fresco team talk. Faked head injuries are especially maddening, a rotten exploitation of a right-minded rule.
1. VAR
As if anything else could take the top spot. Nothing has had a more negative impact on football as a viewing experience. Its greatest moments of emotion, unmatched by any other sport, are now subject to review.
There was a record eight-minute stoppage for a VAR check in Bournemouth's #FACup meeting with Wolves 😳#BBCFootballpic.twitter.com/sr0PTatWDz
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) March 1, 2025
Everyone who supports a top-level club has now suffered a moment of technology making a fool of their reaction to a goal. So fans second-guess themselves, celebrations are not quite what they were, we doubt our own eyes, great cathartic releases are ruined by slow motion litigation taking place somewhere else. Then you have the discourse around it, extending something miserable even further. Bin it all.
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