A viral video that hit the websphere in the mid to late 90s, set to a piece of classical music, shows a soccer referee in a clip montage lasting less than a minute.

A small, fey and obviously Mediterranean or South American man wearing football cleats and the shirt and shorts of a referee, nevertheless he managed to show incredible grace and frankly, a seriously camp demeanor.

He arches into a bowlike curve, thrusting his hand skywards with a yellow card, head thrown back in a dramatic gesture. He epitomises, in one graceful run, the schoolyard taunt "you run like a girl". In another, he's running backwards, loping his legs back in balletic grace, pointing his toes behind him, like the prancing of a gazelle. In another, he runs up to two other men waving his arms in an exaggerated, pantomime "oh no you di'int!" and so on and so forth.

At the end of the clip, he's shown extending his arms with a flourish, blowing the whistle to end the game.

The initial clip had classical music, but it was later remixed with the ref holding twin light sabers, and another mashup is remixed with the song "Making Ladies" by the "Scissor Sisters".

Now, the man is clearly a flaming homosexual.

And as a result, it opened a serious cross-cultural rift between the masculinosphere of North America and Europe. The Americans tagged the video with comments like "no wonder he's a queer, it's fucking soccer which is a queer's game anyway". Whereas the highly macho European and South American soccer folks made similar taunts back and pointed out the potential for fatality both within the game and without, should you fall afoul of the wrong bunch of casuals. The inevitable comparison went the usual pattern: football compared to soccer and declared more manly - the Europeans rejoinder with rugby and imply the Americans are sissies for wearing pads. The more macho and homophobic soccer fans made nasty comments about him and David "metrosexual" Beckham, whereas the enlightened soccer fans argued back that one could be macho, enjoy a rugged sport but also appreciate the contribution of all manner of people.

The debate raged in more than one comments section to the video, which was hosted in many places.

There was, thankfully, another contingent, one which found the man entertaining, and hoped that he'd somehow end up refereeing the (insert local league here) or the World Cup.

Unfortunately that won't happen.

Jorge José Emiliano dos Santos, or Margarida as he was affectionately known in Brazil, died in 1995 of complications from AIDS.

It wasn't until at least a decade later that his fame spread to the world at large. But he himself was a character in Brazil, and in fact refereed the game in a shiny pink shirt and shorts combination, to the delight of the crowd.

Looking at the video and watching him smile and do his own thing, I can't help but smile myself and hope that wherever he is now, he's still entertaining the crowd watching him keep the order and the peace in whatever game he's officiating now.

The world needs more characters - how many sports do YOU know where the referee was the character?

Chalk one up for soccer over football in my book.