Life was a damned muddle — a football game with everyone offside and the referee gotten rid of — everyone claiming the referee would have been on his side.

The speaker likens life to a chaotic football match in which the rules are universally broken (“everyone offside”) and, crucially, the neutral arbiter has been removed (“the referee gotten rid of”). The image suggests a world where shared standards and fair adjudication have collapsed, leaving only partisan self-justification: each person insists that any authority would naturally validate their own position. Beyond mere cynicism, the metaphor captures Fitzgerald’s recurring preoccupation with moral drift and social disorder—how, without trusted institutions or agreed-upon norms, conflict becomes endless and meaning becomes a “muddle,” sustained by competing narratives rather than truth.