As fans lose control of the sport and clubs they love to mega-rich owners, they turn instead on a familiar enemy: officials

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Another weekend, another slew of wearying arguments about VAR and refereeing. At Bournemouth, Arsenal fans called the referee Robert Jones “a cheat” and chanted that the Premier League was “corrupt”. On social media, the outrage was even greater. Fans have always complained about referees, of course, but traditionally they called them “blind” and dismissed them as “wankers” or “bastards”. Then came the “You’re not fit to referee” song; the cries of systemic corruption, though, are relatively new.

Perhaps this is just the world we live in, one of distortions and paranoia, shaped by a diverse range of populist cynics from José Mourinho to Donald Trump, social media nurturing conspiracy theories which sprout from the fertile ground left as Covid retreated. Or perhaps there is something more complex going on.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition