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Watch: Breaking The World Record For Running Away From The FIFA 94 Referee

Watch: Breaking The World Record For Running Away From The FIFA 94 Referee
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As EA Sports prepare for the "FIFA" name to be dropped from their football game series for the first time ever, fans will spend the coming weeks speculating as to what new features we might expect from EA Sports FC.

We know for sure that the licences are mostly the same, and that the Premier League, Champions League, and all the major European competitions and teams will feature.

Beyond that, we're not sure which features there will be on offer, so we'd like to suggest bringing back one from the annals of FIFA history: the infamous running away from the referee hack on FIFA 94.

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FIFA 94: Remembering the Balls.ie attempt to break world record

Six years ago on Thursday, we tasked Shane "Chopper" Cahill and Mark "I'm not sure I want to use mad dog as my nickname" Farrelly with the simple task of breaking a world record - for the longest time spent running away from the referee on FIFA 94.

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FIFA International Soccer 1994 had an intriguing glitch, which allowed players to run away from the referee after a foul, in an attempt to delay a card being brandished. So, we decided to test the limits of just how long we could manage to get away with running away from the ref.

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Our commentator Adrian Collins aptly described the magnitude of the situation:

To do what man has dreamt of doing since he first looked up at the stars - set the Guinness World Record for running away from the referee in FIFA International Soccer 1994 - the most vintage game on the SEGA Megadrive.

The record stood at one minute and 55 seconds (despite some disputes from our team of gamers), and messrs Cahill and Farrelly set off to smash that time.

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We plumped for a clash between Ireland and England - what else could we have gone with?

After some early controversy regarding a contentious game of rock, paper, scissors, Mark won the tie for who would not play as England, and the game began.

It was not a game of high footballing quality, as both players set out purely with the intention of clearing out an opponent to draw the attention of the referee.

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(The record break comes after the 40-minute mark in the above video)

It took quite some time for a yellow card-worthy tackle to arrive, with Mark finally being pulled up on a poor challenge almost ten minutes into the game. But, even then, we could not escape the clutches of the referee for much longer than half a second, and our quest continued.

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After Mark had put Ireland 2-0 up, the tackles continued to fly in, but our first attempt was not successful. Our second attempt saw the titans of Qatar face off with the giants of the United States, and a foul by a Qatari player saw our first chance to sprint away from the match officials. Alas, we came up 50 seconds short of the record, but we were getting somewhere.

And then, at last, we got within touching distance of the Guinness World Record. A thrilling run from Mark with the Qatari player - after a tackle that was equally shocking in measure - we absolutely smashed the record, coming in at a massive five minutes and five seconds.

After notching up a Guinness World Record, Mr Farrelly had this to say:

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I feel like the hard work we did back in January, the weights sessions, the drinking sessions we had to miss out on for all those running sessions up the hill in snow and in rain and in wind and in hail - it was all worthwhile.

Those Qatari lads, bless their little digital hearts. That was a serious performance. Not only have they beaten the USA 2-0 in the first-half of this game, but they've also set possibly two world records, for the amount of time running away from the referee.

We can hope against hope that this beloved FIFA glitch might somehow find its way into the first edition of EA Sports FC - but we will proudly hold our record until such a time as it reappears on EA's football games.

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