Accidental handball then DOGSO

[one]

Here is another interesting scenario

Ball is put through for striker who is moving towards goal and beats the offside trap. Ball accidentally hits striker's hand (take this as fact), drops to his feet with control and only keeper to beat now. Defender running from behind carelessly trips the striker in an attempt to play the ball. Your decision if the trip was

1. In the PA, say on on penalty spot.
2. Outside PA, say in the D.

 

[snap_RL]

Not sure about this, but wouldn't even an accidental handball, which creates a goalscoring opportunity for yourself, be a DFK.

 

[JamesL]

As the 2021/22 law is written:

1. PK and YC
2. DFK and RC

Do I think I would actually go for that in a game... I may find out one day, I may not.

EDIT: I assume, we are to assume this accidental handball was not as a result of making the body unnaturally bigger and/or it was in a justifiable position for the movement....

 

[JamesL]

Not sure about this, but wouldn't even an accidental handball, which creates a goalscoring opportunity for yourself, be a DFK.

Depends which iteration of LOTG you are using.

 

[one]

As the 2021/22 law is written:

1. PK and YC
2. DFK and RC

Do I think I would actually go for that in a game... I may find out one day, I may not.

EDIT: I assume, we are to assume this accidental handball was not as a result of making the body unnaturally bigger and/or it was in a justifiable position for the movement....

Edit assumption correct. The interesting part is on it being geniunely accidental.

I would change scenario one a little to clarify why this is interesting. Ball accidentally hits striker's hand on top of the spot, drops to his feet and he immediately shoots and scores. Would you give that goal?

 

[JamesL]

Edit assumption correct. The interesting part is on it being geniunely accidental.

I would change scenario one a little to clarify why this is interesting. Ball accidentally hits striker's hand on top of the spot, drops to his feet and he immediately shoots and scores. Would you give that goal?

I wouldn't (as I said I'm not even sure I would so what law says to in the original scenario).
Ths HB only becomes an offence once the goal is scored, so if before being tripped he shoots, and the goal is scored (let's say after the trip as I think that's what makes it interesting) I would Penalise handball as its that which becomes an offence upon the goal being scored and happened first, or at least that is how I would interpret it.

 

[Russell Jones]

Here is another interesting scenario

Ball is put through for striker who is moving towards goal and beats the offside trap. Ball accidentally hits striker's hand (take this as fact), drops to his feet with control and only keeper to beat now. Defender running from behind carelessly trips the striker in an attempt to play the ball. Your decision if the trip was

1. In the PA, say on on penalty spot.
2. Outside PA, say in the D.

With this year's law change, accidental handball is now only an offence if it scores a goal directly or immediately after the ball has struck the hand / arm. In this scenario any 'goal' cannot be immediate as there is time for the defender to trip the attacker. As such, the attacker hasn't committed any offence and you deal with the defender exactly as you would had no accidental handball occurred

 

[one]

With this year's law change, accidental handball is now only an offence if it scores a goal directly or immediately after the ball has struck the hand / arm. In this scenario any 'goal' cannot be immediate as there is time for the defender to trip the attacker. As such, the attacker hasn't committed any offence and you deal with the defender exactly as you would had no accidental handball occurred

I think @JamesL summed it up. If the attacker shoots immediately and a split second later, while ball still in play, he is tripped. We have to give defensive FK if ball enters goal but if the ball goes wide we give a pen.

The issue is not that there is no LOTG answer here. It is that I am not sure if the lotg considered this intricacy. In fact I'd go as far as saying the lotg answer is against the concept of fairness.

I know these are hypotheticals but possible. And with VAR in play, there is every chance it would get picked on with exact sequence and timing.

 

[socal lurker]

With this year's law change, accidental handball is now only an offence if it scores a goal directly or immediately after the ball has struck the hand / arm. In this scenario any 'goal' cannot be immediate as there is time for the defender to trip the attacker. As such, the attacker hasn't committed any offence and you deal with the defender exactly as you would had no accidental handball occurred

Well, the question is how immediate is immediate--I don't think the defender having time to commit a foul necessarily eliminates "immediate"; I think "immediate" primarily means without another event such as a pass to a teammate, not a touch or two by that attacker--but I have not seen any guidance on what IFAB really meant by "immediate," which leaves it ITOOTR and different Rs are going to have different views within a range.

If the OGSO is for the handling attacker to score immediately, then there is no OGSO if there is an immediately preceding accidental handball by the attacker, and there cannot be DOGSO. But that would not remove the careless foul, as the handling offense was never completed--it just made it impossible for the attacker to immediately score. So we would get a PK/DFK but no misconduct. The details of the play are going to matter a lot in this scenario, making it hard to give a concrete answer to a hypothetical that we may picture differently.

 

[one]

The details of the play are going to matter a lot in this scenario, making it hard to give a concrete answer to a hypothetical that we may picture differently.

The intent is to picture different scenarios and see the issue. This is a complex scenario I am still getting my head around it.

If the OGSO is for the handling attacker to score immediately, then there is no OGSO if there is an immediately preceding accidental handball by the attacker, and there cannot be DOGSO.

Very true but only if the attacker were to score immediately.

But that would not remove the careless foul, as the handling offense was never completed--it just made it impossible for the attacker to immediately score.

And again true. But by virtue of the offence not being completed, now you don't know if the attacker was to score immediately or was he to run the ball around the keeper and score after a few touches.

So we would get a PK/DFK but no misconduct.

Only if you assume the attacker was to score immediately.

The problem here is sequencing and the fact that we have an 'event' (accidental handling) which may become an offence depending on a later outcome. Then a foul which stopped us knowing what that outcome would have been. And the punishment for the foul is dependent on the result of the completion (or non completion) of the offence. A complex circular dependency.

 

[socal lurker]

A complex circular dependency.

Yup--easy to get into that "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" concept. The one thing that is clear in the new Laws is that without the ball being kicked into the goal, there is no handling.

For me, in the real world, in the absence of any further official guidance, in most circumstances I'm going to go with the FK/PK and no misconduct on the ground that the OGSO was the opportunity to "immediately" score, and since that would have been a handling offense there was, therefore, no OGSO. (I really don't think that is going to be a controversial call--the attacking team is going to be happy the handling didn't wipe out the PK/DFK, and the defending team, while still thinking the handling was deliberate (because, of course they will!), will be relieved that there was no plastic.)

(There is a lurking irony in some situations: Attacker accidentally handles, immediately shoots the ball that drops to his feet, and is carelessly fouled while shooting. If the shot goes in, we have handling, as the goal was immediately scored, and the handling preceded the careless foul; but if he misses, there is no handling, so we have a PK/DFK. You can win for losing . . .does this make anyone else think of Shrodinger's Cat?)

 

[Peter Grove]

I think we really ought to take any discussion of an OGSO out of this. As of this year's laws edition, it's totally irrelevant.

The explanation that accompanied the latest changes to this section of the law makes it perfectly clear that accidental handling leading to a goal scoring opportunity is not an offence.

 

[socal lurker]

I think we really ought to take any discussion of an OGSO out of this. As of this year's laws edition, it's totally irrelevant.

The explanation that accompanied the latest changes to this section of the law makes it perfectly clear that accidental handling leading to a goal scoring opportunity is not an offence.

While what you say about the laws is correct, I think you have muddled two separate issues in declaring it irrelevant.

It is clearly correct that there cannot be a handling offense in the absence of a goal actually being scored. So the existence or not of an OGSO is totally irrelevant to whether there was a handling offense.

But the accidental handling offense is directly relevant to whether there is DOGSO because the player who accidentally handled the ball cannot "immediately" score with the ball that hit his hand. So it is/can be relevant to the determination if the defender should be sent off (cautioned in the PA), as it is likely not an OGSO once it hits the attacker's hand because he cannot "immediately" score.