A&H

Alternative Handball Wording

J

JH

RefChat Addict
Came up with a vastly shorter wording for HB law that retains the key details. What do people think?

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It is the complexity that I am not happy with. E.g., current wording has points which are usually not offences with the except of some other points (which are usually offences) and those other point have their on exceptions. Having three levels of indentation has a similar complexity for me.

My version (note my considerations are consistent with DOGSO considerations in format):

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Yours is a recreation, I recycle the current text. I like the simplicity of yours but deliberate and unnatural/above shoulder are separate things, it doesn't have to be deliberate for those. Furthermore, 'above shoulder' has a caveat of: unless the player deliberately plays the ball onto their hand/arm.

Either of our texts would work better than what we have now, mine took 10 mins to write, I expect yours didn't take long either.
 
one said:
It is the complexity that I am not happy with. E.g., current wording has points which are usually not offences with the except of some other points (which are usually offences) and those other point have their on exceptions. Having three levels of indentation has a similar complexity for me.

My version (note my considerations are consistent with DOGSO considerations in format):

View attachment 3858
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Just take out the goal scoring opportunity bit so we can get back to safe refereeing without more dreaded VAR interventions
 
JH said:
Yours is a recreation, I recycle the current text. I like the simplicity of yours but deliberate and unnatural/above shoulder are separate things, it doesn't have to be deliberate for those. Furthermore, 'above shoulder' has a caveat of: unless the player deliberately plays the ball onto their hand/arm.

Either of our texts would work better than what we have now, mine took 10 mins to write, I expect yours didn't take long either.
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If by recycle you mean it has the same meaning then yours is but different wording then yours is not.
Many/some cases in your text are black and white and leave no discretion to the referee. The current text (and mine) leaves some discretion to the referee.
 
one said:
If by recycle you mean it has the same meaning then yours is but different wording then yours is not.
Many/some cases in your text are black and white and leave no discretion to the referee. The current text (and mine) leaves some discretion to the referee.
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What do you mean?
The goal of mine was to re-organise current law, including everything IFAB has changed for this season, rather than make it easier to apply or changing any of the content.
 
Sorry I jumbled up my wording there. What I meant to say is that you have actually changed the content and applying a somewhat different set of 'rules'.

For example in a case if hand is above shoulder level and he hadn't played the ball before, your wording means it is ALWAYS an offence. LOTG wording means it sometimes isn't an offence. See the difference?
 
one said:
Sorry I jumbled up my wording there. What I meant to say is that you have actually changed the content and applying a somewhat different set of 'rules'.

For example in a case if hand is above shoulder level and he hadn't played the ball before, your wording means it is ALWAYS an offence. LOTG wording means it sometimes isn't an offence. See the difference?
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Except when supporting the body in the way mentioned or deliberately playing it onto the hand/arm, it is always an offence?
The 'usually' lingo is there because they've added extra conditions, which I have put next to the offences, making 'usually' redundant.
 
JH said:
Except when supporting the body in the way mentioned or deliberately playing it onto the hand/arm, it is always an offence?
The 'usually' lingo is there because they've added extra conditions, which I have put next to the offences, making 'usually' redundant.
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I disagree. The 'usually' lingo is there to give the referee some leeway on deciding it for themselves if it actually is deliberate as the laws can't anticipate every single scenario with a catch all statement.
 
How about:
"It is an offence if a player touches the ball with their hand / arm" Nice and simple :)

I personally am not a fan of the defender and attacker being punished differently. I get why the law was introduced, as it is utter chaos when an attacker scores from an accidental handball and we don't want to see game changing soft penalties. But I don't like the same thing being an offence / not an offence depending on if you're attacking or not.

For me, it's become an utter farce.
 
one said:
I disagree. The 'usually' lingo is there to give the referee some leeway on deciding it for themselves if it actually is deliberate as the laws can't anticipate every single scenario with a catch all statement.
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Again, deliberate doesn't directly apply to unnatural position. It doesn't say: 'deliberate HB is an offence and you need to consider unnatural position', it says: 'deliberate HB is an offence, unnatural position is an offence (except X,Y,Z, including X,Y,Z - hence 'usually an offence')
 
TSHudson said:
How about:
"It is an offence if a player touches the ball with their hand / arm" Nice and simple :)

I personally am not a fan of the defender and attacker being punished differently. I get why the law was introduced, as it is utter chaos when an attacker scores from an accidental handball and we don't want to see game changing soft penalties. But I don't like the same thing being an offence / not an offence depending on if you're attacking or not.

For me, it's become an utter farce.
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If you really want a farce, make any contact with an arm an offense. Then we create a huge incentive to target arms and concoct FKs. Totally antithetical to the SOTG.

IMHO, the better way to address the "usually" stuff, which is part of defining deliberate, would be to take it out of Law 12 and put it in the guidance at the end of the book. That would be better at the goal here, which was to have various soccer cultures using the same sense of deliberate in assesing ball/arm contact.
 
I think the fact that we're all debating this proves the point that the law doesn't make clear sense. Different opinions keep coming out and they can probably all make sense in their own right. There are a few threads about this and still no really clear answer to all aspects of handball.
I bet there will be another update for next season!
 
JH said:
Again, deliberate doesn't directly apply to unnatural position.
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Yes, it does. As @socal lurker says, the "usually" stuff is part of defining deliberate. The primary and overriding part of the law is that it is an offence if a player:
deliberately touches the ball with their hand/arm, including moving the hand/arm towards the ball
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Apart from the specific exceptions whereby accidental handling creating a goal/goal scoring opportunity is an offence, everything else is subservient to the "deliberately touches" clause.

What it's saying is that when, for example, "the hand/arm has made their body unnaturally bigger" it's usually (but not always) an indication that it was deliberate.
 
socal lurker said:
If you really want a farce, make any contact with an arm an offense. Then we create a huge incentive to target arms and concoct FKs. Totally antithetical to the SOTG.
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You honestly think players are good enough to target hitting the ball at someone's hand / arm?! Perhaps if they're only a few feet away and at the highest level, but more than a few feet and below the PL, then it would be totally redundant to try and hit someone's arm / hand. My team is in L2 and they can't even hit the effing goal from 10 yards, let alone a small target like the hand!!
 
TSHudson said:
You honestly think players are good enough to target hitting the ball at someone's hand / arm?! Perhaps if they're only a few feet away and at the highest level, but more than a few feet and below the PL, then it would be totally redundant to try and hit someone's arm / hand. My team is in L2 and they can't even hit the effing goal from 10 yards, let alone a small target like the hand!!
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I think Sterling did just this for the second TAA HB on Sunday. It would be a nightmare all the way down the pyramid IMHO.
 
Peter Grove said:
Yes, it does. As @socal lurker says, the "usually" stuff is part of defining deliberate. The primary and overriding part of the law is that it is an offence if a player:


Apart from the specific exceptions whereby accidental handling creating a goal/goal scoring opportunity is an offence, everything else is subservient to the "deliberately touches" clause.

What it's saying is that when, for example, "the hand/arm has made their body unnaturally bigger" it's usually (but not always) an indication that it was deliberate.
Click to expand...
Deliberate is a completely separate bullet point to unnatural/above shoulder, they do not come under it as a consideration, so where are you getting this from?

Not to mention that unnatural/above shoulder specifically applies even after a close deflection - how can that be deliberate?

"having the hand/arm above shoulder height is rarely a ‘natural’ position and a
player is ‘taking a risk’ by having the hand/arm in that position, including
when sliding" - again, 'taking a risk' doesn't imply they are deliberately handling, it implies that they will be punished if the ball touches their upstretched arm no matter if it is a close deflection or not, as law states.
 
JH said:
Deliberate is a completely separate bullet point to unnatural/above shoulder, they do not come under it as a consideration, so where are you getting this from?

Not to mention that unnatural/above shoulder specifically applies even after a close deflection - how can that be deliberate?

"having the hand/arm above shoulder height is rarely a ‘natural’ position and a
player is ‘taking a risk’ by having the hand/arm in that position, including
when sliding" - again, 'taking a risk' doesn't imply they are deliberately handling, it implies that they will be punished if the ball touches their upstretched arm no matter if it is a close deflection or not, as law states.
Click to expand...

There are three things that "are" an offense--deliberate and the two attacker unintentional offenses.

While I admit that IFAB's drafting is crappy, I don't think it is a drafting error that the next section is only things that are "usually" an offense--and I think the implication, consistent with the guidance that existed before the Law changes, is that those are usually offenses because they should usually be considered deliberate (as they were in guidance before the law change). The deliberate action that warrants a handling call is putting the arm in an unnatural position or leaving it in a probably ball path on a slide.

But I agree with the premise of your OP that this is drafted in a hopelessly confusing way.
 
And if you want proof of how crappy it is (apart from "usually not with some exceptions which usually are with exceptions of their own")

"It is an offence if a player: deliberately touches the ball with their hand/arm, including moving the hand/arm towards the ball"

What does the highlighted part mean?
  • Does it mean moving hand towards ball is always an offence deliberate or not?
  • Or does it mean moving hand towards ball is an offence only if deliberate?
In the former case it should have been stated as a separate sentence to make it clear. In the later it is not a 'hard criteria' and it should be moved to the "usually handball" section.
 
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