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Coming to an MLS game near you, video replay

Soccer is a simple game, unlike other sports with thick rule books, there are only 17 Laws of the Game that have been largely unchanged since FIFA first adopted them in 1904. In charge of enforcing the laws on the field is of course the referee.

The great Uruguayan writer and lover of the beautiful game Eduardo Galeano once wrote about referees, saying “In Spanish he is the árbitro and he is arbitrary by definition. An abominable tyrant who runs his dictatorship without opposition, a pompous executioner who exercises his absolute power with an operatic flourish.