Deep Disagreement and Institutional Resolution in Professional Sport: A Critical Analysis of the “Great Attractor” Framework in Football Officiating

Robert Fogelin’s notion of Deep Disagreement (DD) has predominantly been explored within philosophical discourse, with limited application in practical institutional contexts. This paper presents an innovative framework, termed the “Great Attractor” model, which demonstrates how professional football addresses seemingly irresolvable epistemic conflicts through procedural mechanisms rather than through consensus-building. By analyzing the shift from human referee decisions to video-assisted review (VAR) and the prospective integration of artificial intelligence in officiating, we illustrate that DD in sports is not indicative of a logical failure but rather a fundamental conflict between opposing paradigms: the “humanist” approach, which emphasizes intent, discretion, and the “spirit of the game,” and the “technocratic” approach, which emphasizes measurability, consistency, and geometric precision. Our findings suggest that effectively resolving DD necessitates not a transformation in epistemic beliefs but the establishment of sufficient “procedural gravity” to achieve institutional closure while maintaining social legitimacy.

Deep Disagreement; Fogelin, institutional facts, procedural authority

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