Summary
This feature examines why the refrain ‘the game’s gone’ persists in responses to contemporary football. Drawing on psychoanalytic ideas about desire and loss, it considers how VAR, rising costs and commercial ownership become signs of an imagined past in which football seemed more communal. The proposed European Super League shows how this sense of loss can turn dissatisfaction into collective protest. The essay asks how real grievances might inform demands about ownership and supporter power without assuming that a lost version of the game can be restored.