When in FIFA you could escape from the referee (and avoid cards)

VAR or not VAR, the referees never really get everyone to agree. It even happens in video games, where theoretically whistles – driven by elaborate artificial intelligences – should be infallible. There was a moment when, however, they really were infallible, despite taking their time to wave a card in the face of a footballer. It was the year 1993, when the first chapter of the FIFA series was launched, with a historical gameplay that laid the foundations for the product we know today … and a gem now remembered by few, just about referees.

The first FIFA –

In 1993, the first game in the FIFA series, called FIFA International Soccer. The title was released for Sega’s Mega Drive. For some reason, the developers of EA Sports thought to include a nice feature (or it was a simple bug that was never fixed, this is not known even many years later). As evidenced by the vintage videos, the first FIFA allowed to commit a yellow or red foul, and then run away from the referee to prevent the referee from actually giving the card to the offending player.

Like at the Benny Hill Show –

This “feature” has been immortalized in every kind of movie, like the one you can see above with lots of ironic tune from the Benny Hill Show. The chase could go on for hours and hours, with the other twenty-one unarmed players watching this show unworthy of the green rectangle. However, it was not possible to really avoid the sanction: as soon as the player in question stopped, the upright referee pulled out the card and ordered the resumption of the game, as if nothing had happened. A touch of hilarity in a franchise that, perhaps, had overestimated its reach and had not grasped the extraordinary success it would have in a few years …