MOT vs CEL

[one]

Added time penalty not a handball for me in a hundred years. If indeed it touched the ball it was neither deliberate nor unnaturally bigger for the action. It was the opponent's shoulder which pushed the hand towards the ball for FFS (For Football's Sake). And it certainly is not a clear and obvious error in a million years.

 

[RichardRef]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2054688935020769589

This one will rumble on and on especially if Celtic beat Hearts on Saturday.

I see no clear evidence of the ball hitting hand so how VAR have considered it a clear and obvious error I don’t know

 

[CaptainsPlease]

Here's the incident (4:43):

Ball definitely hits the defender's arm:

I agree that the defender's body is not being made unnaturally bigger because the ball is going to hit his head anyway.
I am also not seeing a deliberate action by the defender leading to the contact. If you watch the close up at 1.5x (essentially returning it to normal speed) it seems clear the defender does not have time to react to the collision with the attacker.

 

[SelbyRef]

I struggled to see conclusive proof it hit his hand & certainly not in the brief amount of time Beaton was at the screen before giving the pen.

Ultimately - was this a deliberate action? Obviously we have the laws to ‘support’ i.e. making body unnaturally bigger etc, but here Trusty ‘heads’ the defender’s elbow just as the ball reaches them, taking his arm and hand towards his forehead for the ball to (according to VAR) then hit his hand.

I genuinely couldn’t believe this got given. It’s not a handball under any interpretation of the laws IMO. I thought they were deliberating on whether he elbowed Trusty (which wasn’t the case either - he came in blindside to the defender).

 

[betterlatethannever]

I think they’re (the pundits) right when they say there is no way the ball moves like that if it hits his hand - if it hits the hand in that position with no swing the ball stops and drops down, it doesn’t go 10-15 yards the other way

 

[es1]

the speed taken to give the decision at the screen is very strange considering how hard it is to tell anything from the replays

if i were connected to Hearts i'd be fuming

 

[es1]

Good image showing what has actually happened - heading the ball through his hand almost?

Still don't think it's anything resembling a penalty and obviously not a view the ref had

 

[DavidObs]

This is a very personal opinion and I’m not saying that I agree with my own thoughts but Referees can’t win - they either take too long or not long enough, though the Celtic incident was very quick, but he obviously saw what he wanted to see. Similar to the Raya incident, I don’t think it was a clear & obvious error that was considered, but given the magnitude of the decision, the Referees in the West Ham & Celtic games wanted to ensure the correct decision was reached (whether that was the right thing to do is a separate debate). I think many can see the reason for West Ham’s goal being disallowed (even if they disagreed with it because of other things going on at the same/similar time), but more are having trouble with the Celtic incident, especially with the speed of review.

 

[Paul_10]

It's not the speed of the review I have an issue with, it's they only seemed to show it from one angle which is not fully conclusive.

If they had a side on angle which was shown to the ref and it hits his hand then more people would accept the decision.

I do think though alot of the fury is also coming from that it benefitted Celtic, if this was hearts being awarded a penalty then there won't be anywhere near as much anger about it.

 

[DavidObs]

It's not the speed of the review I have an issue with, it's they only seemed to show it from one angle which is not fully conclusive.

If they had a side on angle which was shown to the ref and it hits his hand then more people would accept the decision.

I do think though alot of the fury is also coming from that it benefitted Celtic, if this was hearts being awarded a penalty then there won't be anywhere near as much anger about it.

Could there have been more angles had the Referee waited!

 

[ladbroke8745]

My considerable gripe with some decisions (lately 2 pen calls in 2 games this very week) is that they're both on the side of the AR who have clear unobstructed views of it all.
How these assistants can't seemingly have an input (not saying they don't) but a head injury in the Tottenham game and this incident in this game. Assistants looking directly at them.

 

[one]

View attachment 8678

Good image showing what has actually happened - heading the ball through his hand almost?

Still don't think it's anything resembling a penalty and obviously not a view the ref had

If find there is a high chance the image has been digitally altered. The the bottim of the contact line through the ball to hand doesnt look right.

 

[ARF]

It hits the defender's hand, but it's not a handball offence. Not deliberate, and hasn't made him unnaturally bigger. I think the push from behind on the attacker looks like a foul though.

 

[Pembroke]

I am not giving anything like that at my level ever being a penalty.

Any devils advocate here to explain what it was the officials were seeing to create an offence there from Trusty's header?

 

[socal lurker]

Assuming there is contact with the hand, we do have the idea that a hand above the head is likely a HB. (I’m too lazy to look it up, but wasn’t that one of the specific items in IFAB’s awful checklist that was in the Laws for a year?)

Despite the sales pitch that VaR would reduce controversy, we again have a scenario that would have had minor whinging from Celtic fans about a no-call pre- VAR that becomes a major controversy via VAR. (And it would have been a bigger controversy had VAR not acted than it would have been pre-VAR.) but the genie is out of the bottle and never going back.

It would be interesting to hear the discussion in the booth and with the R. Did the R start by saying something like “I’d have a HB if it touched, but I can’t tell if it touched.”? Did the in booth discussion start with, the hands up there, but doesn’t look like it hit, so let’s check that, and focussed so much on finding contact that he never re-foucssed on deliberate/biggering?

 

[RustyRef]

It's not the speed of the review I have an issue with, it's they only seemed to show it from one angle which is not fully conclusive.

If they had a side on angle which was shown to the ref and it hits his hand then more people would accept the decision.

I do think though alot of the fury is also coming from that it benefitted Celtic, if this was hearts being awarded a penalty then there won't be anywhere near as much anger about it.

There are only 6 cameras available to VAR in Scotland, compared to 30+ in England, so perhaps they didn't have any other angles to show him.

 

[JamesL]

Assuming there is contact with the hand, we do have the idea that a hand above the head is likely a HB. (I’m too lazy to look it up, but wasn’t that one of the specific items in IFAB’s awful checklist that was in the Laws for a year?).

Yes we had it the hand or arm is above the shoulder it IS handball and then that was softened to IS USUALLY iirc

 

[LothianRef]

I think this has highlighted an interesting contradiction in the wording of the handball law - although who is surprised by that
It states that it’s a handball offence if a player handles the ball when their hand has made their body unnaturally bigger. However it then goes on to define “unnaturally bigger” as “not justifiable by their movement for that situation”.
In this instance, it’s unclear whether or not it hits the hand of the Motherwell player. Even if it does, his hand is positioned right in front of his head so it’s not made his body any bigger. Yet there’s also a reasonable argument that jumping with your hand in front of your head is not a natural way to jump.
Long and short of it, I’ve no idea and VAR should’ve stayed well clear.

 

[CaptainsPlease]

I think this has highlighted an interesting contradiction in the wording of the handball law - although who is surprised by that
It states that it’s a handball offence if a player handles the ball when their hand has made their body unnaturally bigger. However it then goes on to define “unnaturally bigger” as “not justifiable by their movement for that situation”.
In this instance, it’s unclear whether or not it hits the hand of the Motherwell player. Even if it does, his hand is positioned right in front of his head so it’s not made his body any bigger. Yet there’s also a reasonable argument that jumping with your hand in front of your head is not a natural way to jump.
Long and short of it, I’ve no idea and VAR should’ve stayed well clear.

If a player holds their arms across their own chest in an X shape that is obviously 'not justifiable by their movement' but it would be absurd to claim that would mean they had made their body 'unnaturally bigger' if the ball hit an arm. I think it is self-explanatory that making the body bigger is a requirement of making the body 'unnaturally bigger'.