Non-Handball Incident

[Andy A]

Of those claiming handball, do you jump with your arms by your side?

The guidance we are given hear in England that a 'natural' position does not always mean down by your side for this reason.

In my opinion (and remember as refs we all have a different perspective on certain incidents) he is making himself bigger in this particular clip.

I'm not saying I expect players to jump up like seals but that arm is away from his body, he could easily have jumped by putting his right arm on his left shoulder and tucked in. I just tried it and it doesn't affect my balance at all.

 

[CapnBloodbeard]

Agree - no reason to jump with arms flailing out to your sides (unless you're knocked off balance during the jump)

 

[Peter Grove]

In my opinion (and remember as refs we all have a different perspective on certain incidents) he is making himself bigger in this particular clip.

Fair enough but in my opinion he's not.

I'm not saying I expect players to jump up like seals but that arm is away from his body, he could easily have jumped by putting his right arm on his left shoulder and tucked in. I just tried it and it doesn't affect my balance at all.

Just because you can jump that way when you're not taking part in a football match doesn't mean it's natural to do so while playing. To me, that's akin to saying that because a player could jump with his arms in an unusual position in order to try avoid the ball touching his arm, he should therefore be penalised if he doesn't do so. Incidentally, I just tried jumping with my right arm across on my left shoulder and while I was indeed able to do so, is not something I would ever consider doing while actually playing football.

Maybe I'm being really, really old school here but I think we might almost be better served using the wording used up till 1997, namely that it is only an offence if the player carries, strikes or propels the ball with the hand or arm. I'd probably leave out the bit about carrying the ball, though. While admittedly, this probably goes too far the other way, I think it would be closer to the original intent of the law on handling, which is that we should only punish handling that is truly deliberate. Right now, it seems to me that even when a forward blasts the ball at a defender from less than a yard away, if the player is unable to move his arm of of the way quickly enough, the chances are the handball will be given as often as not. This seems to be especially true in Spain wheer it appears that any contact between hand and ball is seen as an offence (whether deliberate or not) and any deliberate handball or any handball leading to a penalty is a yellow card.