A&H

Bicep touch

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duit

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So I was wondering when you try to control the ball with your chest but part of the ball hits your bicep when it is located right next to you body, if it counts as a handball. The arm is in in natural position, but you deliberately take a touch at the same time.
 
The Referee Store
I think you answered your own question by saying "deliberately take a touch"
 
It depends whether the referee decides that this was, as the law puts it, "a deliberate act of a player making contact with the ball with the hand or arm."

The first part of your question makes it sound as if the player was not trying to deliberately make contact with the ball with the arm but was intending to control it with the chest, when it accidentally touched the arm as well - but then you talk about deliberately taking a touch (meaning presumably, a touch with the arm) which would make it an offence. So I would say your description contains inherent contradictions.

This is the basic conundrum with handling offences - something can be seen as accidental if thought of in one way but deliberate if you take a slightly different view of it.

As with many, if not most handling offences, it's very difficult to tell from a written description whether a particular action is an offence or not. Even if you had a video of what you describe though, I suspect you could show it to a number of referees and get different opinions - handling offences are probably the most subjective of all the judgment calls that referee have to make and the ones that divide the refereeing community the most.
 
This sounds deliberate. Ball is coming towards a player, they've got time to react, they take steps to control it and just misjudge the path, that's on the player.
If it deflects awkwardly off the chest onto the arm, that's a little complicated. And if the ball was deflected off another player at the last moment - or their view was mostly blocked - they they probably didn't have time to react.
 
If the ball hits his chest first and then he moves his arm to help control the ball....it’s handball.

If the ball hits his chest and rolls onto his arm, providing he hasn’t moved his arm to help control, then not handball for me.

A simultaneous touch on chest and arm will very much depend on the position of the arm.
 
There's always a lot of talk, debate/discussion about what constitutes deliberate handball in order to fall foul of Law 12.

Aside from all the usual, I tend to remind myself that as a referee, I'm obliged to consider also, that "football" is called that for a reason and that a player has an obligation on their part to ensure that the ball doesn't contact their hand/arm. :cool:
 
Hi
The big test is deciding if it hits the bicep or not. At pace the ball will look like it hit the upper body and deciding what it hit is never easy. The player may have made himself bigger by using his upper arm. With the arm at the side it can be a very difficult call as it will look like the player moves his whole upper body. Does it hit his chest, chest /arm or arm.
We can say what the law is what we cannot bring is clarity to the decision. Any chested ball close to the upper arm will attract howls of handball.
 
Very hard to see if it actually touched the bicep I'd think based upon the description. I would liken it to this as it sounds like the player had time and intention to play the ball.... if the ball came from the side and the player did the same thing but with arm to his side (natural position, arm against side, but deliberate intent to play the ball).... would you consider it a handball?

Personally, if I'm not sure on the contact with the arm, we are playing on. If I am sure it contacted the arm, and they used chest and arm to control the ball, I'm whistling it.
 
There's always a lot of talk, debate/discussion about what constitutes deliberate handball in order to fall foul of Law 12.

Aside from all the usual, I tend to remind myself that as a referee, I'm obliged to consider also, that "football" is called that for a reason and that a player has an obligation on their part to ensure that the ball doesn't contact their hand/arm. :cool:

No. They don’t.

They just have to not deliberately move their hand/arm so that it contacts the ball.

Stop making stuff up.
 
I've said before that the word 'deliberate' should be replaced by 'avoidable', or the statement on HB re-written to this effect. I think avoidable/unavoidable fits better with the clarification afforded by the law
 
I've said before that the word 'deliberate' should be replaced by 'avoidable', or the statement on HB re-written to this effect. I think avoidable/unavoidable fits better with the clarification afforded by the law

100% agree. So much easier to judge avoidable/unavoidable than deliberate or not. I'm very lenient on handball compared to what I see on tv because it hardly ever is deliberate. The law is a joke in it's current state. On tv a player could have his arms in a natural position and the ball smashed at it and it would get given in the middle of the park. Different story in and around the penalty area.
 
Accidental handball is one of those game management situations for sure. I had a game where we had about six or seven 'handballs' where the hand was down by the side and the ball just cannoned off them. By the time I had refused the fourth one, players had stopped appealing.

Then there was one really odd one, where the player mis-controlled it and the ball bounced up slightly behind him and thumped off his hand back into the ground and then in front of him. He had no idea where the ball went! I had to give that, as everyone expected that and he was going to benefit from it being in a good attacking position. Even though that too wasn't deliberate, the appeals were still very strong and no one complained about it.

I don't really like the handball Law: Deliberate handball makes sense, but it seems expected that certain types of accidental handballs get called too based on what you see on the field, ergo the 'spirit' expects us to bend the law a bit too much more than slightly! (If that makes sense?)
 
No. They don’t.

They just have to not deliberately move their hand/arm so that it contacts the ball.

Stop making stuff up.
Padders, that's not strictly true in all cases ... if the ball is kicked from say 30 yards away and the player remains stationary in order to allow the ball to hit his hand / arm rather than moving it out of the way .. then this becomes a deliberate act on their part and therefore handball. Rare but important ...
 
No. They don’t.

They just have to not deliberately move their hand/arm so that it contacts the ball.

Stop making stuff up.

Read Russell's post above. :rolleyes:

Failing to ensure that you don't use your arm/hand to control the ball when you could, is a deliberate act and amounts to the same. That's why I posted it. Rocket science it ain't.

But then, you knew that anyway ....
 
Padders, that's not strictly true in all cases ... if the ball is kicked from say 30 yards away and the player remains stationary in order to allow the ball to hit his hand / arm rather than moving it out of the way .. then this becomes a deliberate act on their part and therefore handball. Rare but important ...
Read Russell's post above. :rolleyes:

Failing to ensure that you don't use your arm/hand to control the ball when you could, is a deliberate act and amounts to the same. That's why I posted it. Rocket science it ain't.

But then, you knew that anyway ....

Ah, if only that was you actually posted, instead of being what you wish you had posted.....

To recap....

a player has an obligation on their part to ensure that the ball doesn't contact their hand/arm.

A player has no such obligation......

The referee, however, has an obligation to judge whether that contact meets the criteria for a handball offence.

See, this is what happens when you make stuff up.....
 
Ah, if only that was you actually posted, instead of being what you wish you had posted.....

To recap....



A player has no such obligation......

The referee, however, has an obligation to judge whether that contact meets the criteria for a handball offence.

See, this is what happens when you make stuff up.....

Ah sorry my follicle-slicing chum, but sadly both my posts are correct.
Just in exactly the same way that a player has an obligation to ensure that he doesn't challenge another in a manner that is careless, reckless or excessively forceful. 😉
Keep learning chap. It's free on here. 😃
 
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