"That was a clear foul; why didn't the referee call it?" — "If the referee didn't call it, then it wasn't a foul." — The idea that a foul is what referee decides is a foul exemplifies the concept of the performative (speech) act as an action or statement whose performance (here, the blowing of a whistle) creates the effect it describes, as long as the performer is authorized to do so. These days in football, with the video assistant referee occasionally intervening, such a performative becomes somewhat more complicated, but even with that additional layer of decision-making, the referee on the pitch still determines whether an action is a foul or not. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 15 April 2026)