AS THE Swedish league got underway this spring, yellow-and-black-clad supporters of Stockholm club AIK held up an enormous banner containing a long, vivid story about the dark forces of modern football conquering the world.

“The whole world? No!” read the words on the giant display. “There was, in fact, a small area that successfully resisted the intruders, surrounded by modern football’s smoldering ruins.”

The intruder in this case is VAR — the high-tech video review system formally written into the laws of football in 2018 to help referees make the right calls in the biggest moments.