to pull the football
- idiom
- UK
:
dejar en la estacada
- Every year management pulls the football with our bonus, saying it will come but never does.
Examples
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She warned me not to trust him because he tends to pull the football when it matters most.
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After being promised a raise, I felt my boss would pull the football again and not deliver.
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Don't pull the football again!
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Sam pulled the football away at the last second.
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After being promised a raise, I felt my boss would pull the football again and not deliver.
-
Every year management pulls the football with our bonus, saying it will come but never does.
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She warned me not to trust him because he tends to pull the football when it matters most.
Synonyms
17
7.5
Make someone believe a false promise for a long time to get an advantage
To suddenly stop helping someone, leaving them in a difficult situation
Antonyms
How Reliable
Surface Forms
Morphology
pull + the + football
The literal meanings of 'pull' and 'football' do not directly give the idiomatic sense, but there is a recognisable metaphorical link to the prank of pulling a ball away so someone falls — which maps onto withdrawing promised support. This cultural/pragmatic scenario makes the expression partially inferable but not fully predictable for a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words, so it is best classified as semi-transparent.
Etymology
The verb pull the football comes from a simple children's trick: someone runs to kick a football but a friend suddenly pulls it away so they miss and fall. That strong picture shows why it means 'to trick or let someone down again and again by taking away promised help at the last moment'.