#AgainstModernFootball - kick-off countdowns

For every team at this summer’s European Championships, the countdown to kick-off started long ago - months ago, in fact. As soon as qualification finished the clock started ticking, with every player involved circling the date in their calendar with a felt-tip marker. They awoke on the morning of their tournament opener like an excited child on Christmas morning. They probably don’t need an actual countdown, though.

But regardless of whether they need one or not, UEFA has made a countdown to kick-off, screeched over the Tannoy, part of Euro 2016’s pre-match routine. 22 players ready on the pitch, fans waiting in the stands, nothing can begin until 10 has been counted down to 1. Because without it how would anyone decipher that the match is about to start?

In this vain UEFA will soon enforce countdowns for everything. Players won’t be able to take a throw-in without a countdown ringing in their ears. There will be a countdown to every pass, like a footballing equivalent to basketball’s shot-clock if basketball’s shot-clock only counted down from five seconds. This will be Euro 2016’s legacy, like free kick spray was for the 2014 World Cup.

Perhaps UEFA should gave given Alicia Keys a countdown to the kick-off during her pre-match performance at the Champions League final last month. The American crooner, who performed a song about New York before a game involving two Madrid clubs played in Milan, overstayed her welcome by roughly 10 minutes, delaying the start of the match. In that instance a countdown cutting right across her warbling about concrete jungles where dreams are made of would have been entirely justified.

But that is a rare exception. Countdowns are only acceptable on New Year’s Eve. Or when howled by Frau Farbissina at Dr. Evil as he stands in front of a tank full of sharks with lasers. Besides that, though, there is no excuse. Countdowns should be left behind at Euro 2016, like the English and Russian fans who disgraced themselves in Marseille. Or the light grey t-shirt Joachim Low (a typically sweaty man) foolishly wore on the touchline against Ukraine.

Maybe it’s for the benefit of the referee, who no longer needs to wear a watch on the pitch. Without that weight on their wrists Mike Dean will have even more freedom to gesture dramatically and flamboyantly wave cards at booked players. No longer will they look like PE teachers, checking how many minutes are left before morning playtime.

Referees already have enough equipment to cart round with them on the pitch. Maybe they’ll one day be spared of their book as well, saving IKEA millions in the way of those little pencils stowed in the sock of every whistler. It’ll also ensure that every booking is accounted for, making sure that nobody ever pulls ‘a Graham Poll’ ever again.

Essentially, UEFA has fitted every stadium at Euro 2016 this summer with Siri, although the only question it seems capable of answering is “how many seconds are left until kick-off?” Don’t ask it for directions to the nearest bar, because UEFA has banned all alcohol in and around venues at the tournament. Like all good satellite navigation systems, it will send you 30 miles away and you’ll have to wade through a canal to get there.

There needs to be an amnesty of sorts with regards to the cluttering of all that precedes kick-off at modern football games. It’s understandable that organisations like UEFA should wish to make the most of the sport as a spectacle, but football is already a natural spectacle without opening ceremonies and thumping David Guetta chart hits and ostentatious light shows. And countdowns to kick-off.

Football can do without them. In the minutes prior to kick-off UEFA should cut the music and axe the countdowns. Let the fans sing and chant, creating the atmosphere that naturally comes with such occasions. There’s no need to artificially manufacture excitement when it is already there. The minutes before kick-off are somewhat sacred; don’t spoil them with contrived build-up for the sake of contrived build-up. Europe is famous for the Final Countdown, but it doesn’t need another one in France this summer.