Luton v Wolves

[santa sangria]

In the end, away from the TV, at grassroots, it’s all about how you sell it. If you blow shyly for a weird handball no one will believe you.

Blow with confidence, scream not a natural position, do the ball to hand signal. Sell sell sell. Don’t wait to be asked or confronted. Tell everyone already!

 

[Russell Jones]

In the end, away from the TV, at grassroots, it’s all about how you sell it. If you blow shyly for a weird handball no one will believe you.

Blow with confidence, scream not a natural position, do the ball to hand signal. Sell sell sell. Don’t wait to be asked or confronted. Tell everyone already!

And likewise, if you choose to implement the law as it's actually written, therefore allowing players to have their arms in all sorts of (entirely natural) positions as part of normal football playing motions, then be prepared to assertively sell your choices not to penalise the consequent meeting of ball/arm! Phrases like 'No intent', 'Natural Position', "Accidental" and "Ball to Hand" are your friends

 

[bloovee]

you can get hung up the literal words, or you can pay attention to how it is been envisioned. The clear reality is that what is natural position is not used in the biomechanical sense. It’s used in the sense of natural to what soccer expects players to do to keep their arms out of the way. This wouldn’t be where I would necessarily up, but I think it is correct that England is more resistant than the rest of the world in accepting that this isn’t so much about biometrics as about what football expects.

So someone has decided that football expects "natural" to mean "'natural' in a not natural sense"?

 

[bloovee]

In the end, away from the TV, at grassroots, it’s all about how you sell it. If you blow shyly for a weird handball no one will believe you.

Blow with confidence, scream not a natural position, do the ball to hand signal. Sell sell sell. Don’t wait to be asked or confronted. Tell everyone already!

And likewise, if you choose to implement the law as it's actually written, therefore allowing players to have their arms in all sorts of (entirely natural) positions as part of normal football playing motions, then be prepared to assertively sell your choices not to penalise the consequent meeting of ball/arm! Phrases like 'No intent', 'Natural Position', "Accidental" and "Ball to Hand" are your friends

So that's shouting "ball to hand" to justify either giving or not giving handball?

 

[Russell Jones]

So that's shouting "ball to hand" to justify either giving or not giving handball?

No, you're misreading. I'm suggesting shouting ball to hand if you believe the "handball" to have been accidental and no offence. @santa sangria is suggesting using body language to 'sell' that a decision is deliberate handball by pointing to the arm.

At the end of the day, until / unless we move towards the hockey model (ie every contact with an offending limb is an offence) which IMO would be disastrous for football, there will always be grey areas and borderline decisions that can legitimately be called either way depending on two different referees' views as to whether a body position is natural or unnatural (for the body movement that is being undertaken). Where Santa and I are agreeing is that in this world where handball remains contentious, confident, loud 'selling' of your decision, either way, when the ball has hit a hand / arm, is a key way to minimise any ensuing disagreement

 

[RustyRef]

No, you're misreading. I'm suggesting shouting ball to hand if you believe the "handball" to have been accidental and no offence. @santa sangria is suggesting using body language to 'sell' that a decision is deliberate handball by pointing to the arm.

At the end of the day, until / unless we move towards the hockey model (ie every contact with an offending limb is an offence) which IMO would be disastrous for football, there will always be grey areas and borderline decisions that can legitimately be called either way depending on two different referees' views as to whether a body position is natural or unnatural (for the body movement that is being undertaken). Where Santa and I are agreeing is that in this world where handball remains contentious, confident, loud 'selling' of your decision, either way, when the ball has hit a hand / arm, is a key way to minimise any ensuing disagreement

Exactly that. Whichever way they have changed the laws over the years has just led to different controversies, handball is always going to be subjective. Just look at the Anthony Gordon handling before Newcastle scored, people are complaining about that (why I don't know as a cricket score is still a cricket score even if there is one less goal), yet the people complaining are the same ones that complained when goals were ruled out due to accidental handling in the build up to goals being penalised.

As a referee you have to explain decisions, and at our level we get one look at it, exactly the same as the players and coaches get one look. So things like "by his side", "accidental", "natural position", etc, are words and phrases that you are going to need to use as a referee.

 

[DJIC]

Football's whole mindset on referees & handball is strange.

Talk Sport Ally McCoist & Neil Warnock this morning:

Ally: "My two sons thought it was a clear penalty, I however believe it wasn't"

Neil: "The issue is referees don't understand the game"

Ironic, they agree we have a subjective decision, but can't see that the referee/VAR have to go one way or the other, does that really mean they don't understand the game!

FWIW, I think any ball hit at a player which gives them no time to react, should not be given as handball (they have to have their arms somewhere), unless you have a clear John Terry style star jump to block the ball.

 

[FirsFox40]

I’m not sure what I think about anything anymore until Big Howard comes out and tells me a month llater.

 

[FirsFox40]

Ironic, they agree we have a subjective decision, but can't see that the referee/VAR have to go one way or the other, does that really mean they don't understand the game!

Everyone seems to forget that unless something has genuinely happened that we haven’t seen (off the ball, etc) that if we haven’t given it… we *have* still made a decision.

 

[RustyRef]

Handling is always going to have an element of subjectivity, and players will never understand it. I had a game tonight where I gave a penalty for handball after a defender blocked a shot with his arms way out from his body. I gave myself a bit of thinking time, but could only come to the conclusion it was DOGSO-H, without the handling it was almost certain a goal would have been scored, so I sent him off.

There weren't really many complaints about the penalty, the whole argument was around "double jeopardy", and I spent a fair bit of time explaining that only applies where there was a challenge for the ball. But some players were complaining about the penalty itself, on the basis the player was protecting himself. Not buying that as his arms were out to the side, not in front of his face, but even if they were in front of his face that is still potentially a penalty.

 

[Runner-Ref]

Football's whole mindset on referees & handball is strange.

Talk Sport Ally McCoist & Neil Warnock this morning:

Ally: "My two sons thought it was a clear penalty, I however believe it wasn't"

Neil: "The issue is referees don't understand the game"

Ironic, they agree we have a subjective decision, but can't see that the referee/VAR have to go one way or the other, does that really mean they don't understand the game!

FWIW, I think any ball hit at a player which gives them no time to react, should not be given as handball (they have to have their arms somewhere), unless you have a clear John Terry style star jump to block the ball.

On your last paragraph; this wouldn’t really solve anything as it’s still entirely subjective. How do you decide if a player had time to react or not? Bear in mind that players at the top level will generally have better reaction speeds than most people, so there’s still a good chance it gets penalised.

As has been said further up in the chain by a few people; unless they decided that any form of handball is punishable (not something I want) there will always be grey areas. Law cannot cover every possible possibility that may happen once in a blue moon. They’ve made changes such as the handball leading to a goal, then changed it again because people didn’t like it.

And on Colin’s comment of referees ‘don’t know the game’; this is just generic waffle they spout when they don’t have anything else to say. Referees may not be quite as tactically astute as Guardiola or Klopp, but I imagine most referees would give managers a run for their money, at least, in a LOTG quiz- does this mean managers don’t know the game?

 

[GraemeS]

If I were designing football laws from scratch, I would build the concept of handball around "gaining an advantage by use of the hand". It's still somewhat subjective of course, but rather than expecting referees to subjectively judge intent of an action, it would change it to subjectively judging outcome, which I think would both be a lot easier to be consistent on and also more closely match what actually annoys people about HBs that are/aren't given.

(Point 2 on my big redesign would be changing the shape of the PA and I haven't gotten much further than that!)