Football's a mess: don't let technology spoil that

"SWEET disorder", the poet Robert Herrick wrote, is more bewitching to the human eye than precise art. What he applied to Elizabethan fashion sense applies equally to football, whose World Cup is just kicking off in Russia. It will be the first one to supplement on-pitch decision-making with officials viewing video-replay footage, officially only in cases of "clear and obvious error" (see "Why video-assisted referees won't stop World Cup errors"). After all, football is big business: decisions must be right and seen to be right. This magazine is mostly as resolute as a solid centre back in defence of technology, but here not so much.