The game of football is basically the same all over the world.  Kids can learn the game in Morocco, Brazil, Laos or Germany secure in the knowledge that they might all one day compete together in the World Cup. They can sleep soundly at night because the rulebook is the same and because the referees that enforce the rules on the pitch do so in a broadly consistent manner. Both parts are important.  If kids in various countries had the same rulebook, but enforcement varied by a lot in different places, it would not be possible to play the same game anymore.  If what counted as a penalty was widely different in Morocco from Germany, or the total number of players allowed on the field was different in Laos from Brazil, the game would no longer be the same even if the “rulebook” were officially identical. We are about to find out what happens if the referees simply vanish from the pitch entirely.  How long will players keep following the same rules before local variations of the game appear?  Without a referee to maintain order, how will players behave in each match?  How long will the global game continue at all? Before football fans panic, this problem is not actually found in football, but in the global trade arena.  The referees are a much more obscure group of just seven individuals known as the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO).  Today in Geneva, the referees were officially pulled off the trade pitch.