It’s probably a testament to the power of football that it remains the most popular sport on the planet, despite the apparent determination of the game’s administrators to make it less fun.

The latest example is Tony Scholes, the Premier League’s chief football officer, who commented at a media event this week that officials may crack down on one of the modern game’s great ills: goal celebrations.

“There’s a line isn’t there?” Scholes said. “There’s also a balance. We like to see celebrations. Some have been very funny, entertaining. But there’s a line and once it crosses over into mockery or criticism then we’d need to deal with it.”

This is apparently a hot topic after a variety of definitely fun people seemed to take a dim view of Myles Lewis-Skelly doing Erling Haaland’s lotus pose/meditation celebration thing after he scored against Manchester City last weekend.

See also Iliman Ndiaye, who received a yellow card during Everton’s recent win away to Brighton & Hove Albion for imitating a seagull, sanctioned on the basis that it was considered ‘provocative, derisory or inflammatory’, as laid out in IFAB’s laws of the game.

The things a player can do to express their pleasure at scoring a goal are narrowing all the time. Can’t remove your shirt, no matter what the circumstances. Chloe Kelly was booked for twirling her jersey around her head upon scoring the winning goal at Euro 2022, the defining and most euphoric moment of her career/maybe even life, and she got a ticking-off for it because, I dunno, international sensibilities were offended by the sight of a sports bra or something.

Can’t cover your face with your shirt. Can’t reveal slogans. Can’t adjust your clothing in some way to reveal a company name that isn’t on the governing body’s approved list.

And now, you can’t do anything that could, potentially, make someone a little cross.

Yes, there is “a line”, but it’s a fascist salute or something, not gently chiding your opposition.

If you sincerely believe that Lewis-Skelly, or Ndiaye, or Haaland, or Emi Martinez for his daft little dance during the World Cup final penalty shootout, or anyone who shows us their torso, should be officially sanctioned for mocking celebrations, then I would suggest having a word with yourself and asking what exactly you’re looking for when you watch football.

Should Martinez really be stopped for having ‘fun’? (Logan Riely/Getty Images)

There is a danger here of becoming a tedious curmudgeon, angry that things aren’t as good as when I was a lad. Or even worse, a watered-down version of people who splutter “…you can’t say anything THESE DAYS.”

But it does feel like there is less joy in the game now. Things are awfully serious and po-faced. Many new innovations have made things much less fun, and most of them stem from things brought in by those in charge, in theory to ‘improve’ or ‘grow’ the game.

There’s VAR, introduced because people could not countenance the idea of referees making mistakes/giving decisions they disagreed with. It’s an invention that, even if it actually worked, would have made the game more miserable and sterile, but it hasn’t worked. And in a cruel/hilarious joke played on the people who wanted it in the first place, VAR hasn’t eliminated all mistakes/decisions they disagreed with, but it has amplified them, made them seem even more inexplicable and thus made people even more furious.

But still, in most games, everyone is afforded at least one opportunity to stand around getting cold, while someone miles away checks a TV multiple times and nobody in the stadium has any idea what’s actually going on… so maybe it is worth it after all.

You can chuck all the ancillary stuff to do with VAR into the ‘no fun’ bin too. For example, the concept of referees explaining their decisions during games, introduced this season in the Carabao Cup and during the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

See also the Howard Webb Show, or whatever that programme is called where he frowns a lot and tells Michael Owen why that red card you disagreed with was actually correct. It’s a remarkable logical leap, when faced with the idea fans being unhappy with officials, to conclude that we actually want to see more of them.

Webb has joined Owen to attempt to explain refereeing decisions (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

Then there’s Gianni Infantino (and everyone at the top of the game, really) thinking that more football is necessarily good, force-feeding us game after game and tournament after tournament, like he’s Miss Trunchbull from Matilda, making Bruce Bogtrotter eat a whole cake.

The elimination of replays. No away goals anymore. FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley rather than a variety of other stadiums. Games exported to places they have no business being, in the name of growing the game.

Venues are more homogenised. Not just in terms of the designs of grounds, although many of them can be quite boring, but simple stuff like goal nets are all the same now, and you’re not allowed to have unusual ‘designs’ mowed into the grass. You should see the list of stuff you have to comply with at your stadium if you want to host a UEFA game.

GO DEEPER

The 20-year plateau of the FIFA World Cup™ aesthetic (or why World Cups all now look the same)

PSR (profit and sustainability regulations): not really the rules themselves, which are well-intentioned if flawed, but the fact that we, as football fans, are now forced to know what amortisation is and care about cash flow.

You’ll no doubt have your own suggestions, but it’s probably best to stop listing them here, lest this really turns into The Athletic’s Big Book of Minor Grievances.

There are many more serious and important things in the game that we could write about, but that’s sort of the point. Football is supposed to have enough about it to take us away from the serious stuff, a distraction that provides respite from any awfulness that might exist.

Ultimately football is supposed to be fun. And as minor as it may seem, solemnly tutting at or punishing a player for lightly mocking someone in celebration of a goal, chips away at that.

(Top photo: Lewis-Skelly celebrates in Haaland-style after scoring for Arsenal against Manchester City. Alex Pantling/Getty Images)