When football stopped deciding football
Football is built on the idea that the pitch decides everything. Ninety minutes, goals, points, league tables. Over a season, justice is supposed to emerge naturally. Yet buried deep in league archives are moments when football quietly abandoned its own logic. Not through scandal or corruption, but through administrative surrender. When leagues ran out of rules, they turned to chance.
Titles, promotions, and survival were not always settled by goals or points. In some cases, they were decided by a coin tossed in a boardroom, an envelope drawn from a hat, or lots picked by officials far from the pitch. These decisions were official, documented, and accepted at the time. Many still stand today, quietly shaping football history.
This is not folklore. It is not exaggeration. It is football’s uncomfortable truth.
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