Football is increasingly run by mediocre people infected by politics and commerce, yet fans still cling to it as a distraction from real life On 27 June 2016, four days after the EU referendum , England were beaten 2-1 by Iceland in the knockout stages of the European football championships. It was a remarkable display of collective paralysis and the corrosive consequences of fear. Nearly two years later, the country does not appear dissimilar: less than the sum of its …