The Ref Stop

Handball law suggestion

Wilson80

Wilson80

New Member
Hi all, I've just published this piece with my ideas for a modified approach to the handball law:

Time to try again on handball?​

The essence of it is for referees to pair an assessment of avoidability with an assessment of whether and to what an extent an advantage was gained from the handball.

This means complementing the existing approach with a fairness test, which is something I think a lot of people would welcome.

I'm very keen to hear your feedback on the suggestion!
 
The Ref Stop
Every attempt to solve handball complicates it, we now have the other complication that laws are being rewritten to suit VAR.

Nice idea but I'd cast this one away.
 
Thanks, Bester.

Yes I recognise over-complication as a danger and something many people are very much against, for good reasons. I don't really think this suggestion adds complexity though, and the idea is to produce fairer outcomes.

How do you think the law should work?
 
Interesting theory, but wouldn't that just put even more human interpretation into the mix. How long would it take to decide what the xG of the shot was, or what the percentile for avoidability was?

My opinion is still put it back to how it was 20 years ago, the referee just decides if he felt it was an intentional attempt or not. And yes, I realise that still relies on human interpretation but they've spent years trying to fix something that wasn't a huge problem, unarguably making it worse along the way, so why not just go back to how it was before the tinkering started? It wouldn't be perfect, but it couldn't really be any worse than it is now.
 
RustyRef said:
Interesting theory, but wouldn't that just put even more human interpretation into the mix. How long would it take to decide what the xG of the shot was, or what the percentile for avoidability was?

My opinion is still put it back to how it was 20 years ago, the referee just decides if he felt it was an intentional attempt or not. And yes, I realise that still relies on human interpretation but they've spent years trying to fix something that wasn't a huge problem, unarguably making it worse along the way, so why not just go back to how it was before the tinkering started? It wouldn't be perfect, but it couldn't really be any worse than it is now.
Click to expand...
What I really like about the current framing of the handball law (and yes, I know I’m in a minority!) is that you can basically distil it down to one simple and eminently fair question. Has the potential offender actually done anything wrong? If not, we play on, even if the accidental handball has given them (almost any) advantage, seeing it as simply the ‘rub of the green’. Most commonly, the thing done wrong is placing the offending body part in an unnatural position that artificially increases the player’s silhouette… less commonly a deliberate movement of that body part towards the ball.

I genuinely believe that if we stick with and continuously communicate the simple ethos that we are not in the business of penalising innocent players, sooner or later people will get it 😀
 
Uh, that was the entire concept of "deliberate" (which was the same as "intentional" before it). Before IFAB thought they could make a magic checklist, determining if the player deliberately did something wrong was exactly what the Laws called for--in the opinion of the referee. And it was well understood that putting an arm someplace deliberately or letting the ball hit it was within the scope of deliberate. Indeed, it used to be a classic referee exam question about a defender playing the ball off an attacker's arm that went into the goal--as test of the referee's understanding that innocent contact is not an offense. (But of course that entirely innocent act has now been made an offense in IFAB's check box mentality.)
 
Wilson80 said:
Hi all, I've just published this piece with my ideas for a modified approach to the handball law:

Time to try again on handball?​

The essence of it is for referees to pair an assessment of avoidability with an assessment of whether and to what an extent an advantage was gained from the handball.

This means complementing the existing approach with a fairness test, which is something I think a lot of people would welcome.

I'm very keen to hear your feedback on the suggestion!
Click to expand...
For me the problem with the handball law has always been that it has been interpreted inconsistently at different levels and regions. The focus should be on consistency and simplicity is secondary.
We have had suggestions in the past. Here is mine, suggested years ago (which also uses avoidability)

Thread 'Handball - your proposed wording' https://refchat.co.uk/threads/handball-your-proposed-wording.13417/

Also a similar one suggested here

Post in thread 'Handball' https://refchat.co.uk/threads/handball.15118/post-169484
 
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