A&H

Handball Question

G

Ge0rge

New Member
I am just a little confused about how the hand ball law is applied.

Situation: Ball strikes a players knee and bounces onto their arm which is in a natural position for example next to their side (and doesn’t lead to a goal or anything like that)

To my understanding this is not a hand ball, not only because their hand is in a natural position but because it’s ricochets off the player first.

So my question is would the same apply if the ball were to bounce off the players knee on to the arm, but the players arm were in an un-natural position, for example above the head?

Any help would be appreciated as this is caused me some confusion.

(apologies if this is in another thread and please close if this is the case)
 
The Referee Store
Any handball above the head is to be penalised, it is not deemed a natural position.

The only exception to this is if the player is in the process of trying to control the ball, it can be deemed a natural position (unless they deliberately move their hand to touch it).
 
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See the HB in the Scotland game last night? Edge of the PA in the last minute. The 'ball was close' and the hand tucked in at the side. The International (UEFA, FIFA) Refs continue to desperately struggle with the idea that not all contact with the hand is HB
 
JamesL said:
Are we using 21/22 laws here?
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You are correct, had the 20/21 laws out!

Handballs above the head don't seem to be spoken about specifically in the 21/22 laws. This to me would imply if it looks natural and the player didn't deliberately make a hand movement towards the ball then play on ...
 
refeire said:
You are correct, had the 20/21 laws out!

Handballs above the head don't seem to be spoken about specifically in the 21/22 laws
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Which was my point.
Usually/is an offence and usually isn't/is not is not there now and has been effectively replaced by justifiable position. For the movement.
 
This is what the LOTG says:

Handling the ball
For the purposes of determining handball offences, the upper boundary of the arm is in line with the bottom of the armpit. Not every touch of a player’s hand/arm with the ball is an offence.
It is an offence if a player:
• deliberately touches the ball with their hand/arm, for example moving the hand/arm towards the ball
• touches the ball with their hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger. A player is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiable by, the player’s body movement for that specific situation. By having their hand/arm in such a position, the player takes a risk of their hand/arm being hit by the ball and being penalised
• scores in the opponents’ goal:
• directly from their hand/arm, even if accidental, including by the goalkeeper
• immediately after the ball has touched their hand/arm, even if accidental

The goalkeeper has the same restrictions on handling the ball as any other player outside the penalty area. If the goalkeeper handles the ball inside their penalty area when not permitted to do so, an indirect free kick is awarded but there is no disciplinary sanction. However, if the offence is playing the ball a second time (with or without the hand/arm) after a restart before it touches another player, the goalkeeper must be sanctioned if the offence stops a promising attack or denies an opponent or the opposing team a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.

I’ve highlighted the relevant section. Has the player made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand or arm is not justifiable? Example a player jumps for a header and it glances off their head and hits their arm. The arm might be up, but taking into account a justifiable position, that isn’t necessarily an offence.
Agree on the poor HB free kick awarded against Scotland in injury time last night though, poor decision that summed up the referees performance imho.
 
Ge0rgeW said:
To my understanding this is not a hand ball, not only because their hand is in a natural position but because it’s ricochets off the player first.
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The second part of you assertion is incorrect. Only the first part is correct.


Ge0rgeW said:
So my question is would the same apply if the ball were to bounce off the players knee on to the arm, but the players arm were in an un-natural position, for example above the head?
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Were it bounces off is irrelevant. If the arm in an unnatural position (for the action they are doing to play the ball legally), and the ball hits their arm (or arm hits the ball), then it's a handball offence.
 
one said:
The second part of you assertion is incorrect. Only the first part is correct.



Were it bounces off is irrelevant. If the arm in an unnatural position (for the action they are doing to play the ball legally), and the ball hits their arm (or arm hits the ball), then it's a handball offence.
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Yes, 'usually' all quite confusing for all concerned when they 'usually' reword the Law at every opportunity. Any surprise the footy community have no idea what HB is, especially when most of the world's Refs are awarding HB on the telly for any hand/arm contact. The application of this Law is embarrassingly inconsistent to us all, with IFAB and their constantly varied dissemination of guidance and 'Chinese Whispers' process of communicating the changes via Confederations to blame
 
Just looking through some of those FIFA clips and can't tell why some are punished and others not punished.

For example in one clip a player goes to ground and puts their lower arm out as protection, the ball then hits this arm and it's penalised.

In a later clip in the 'arm is in a natural position' section, a very similar type of play occurs and a player puts their arm out before touching the ground for protection and it is not penalised.

I may have missed some finer details and will look again after work.
 
refeire said:
Just looking through some of those FIFA clips and can't tell why some are punished and others not punished.
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Refer to @Big Cat 's post. There has been so many changes to the laws of the game recently that the entire football community including most referees are confused.
 
one said:
Refer to @Big Cat 's post. There has been so many changes to the laws of the game recently that the entire football community including most referees are confused.
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Just to clarify I'm not speaking about the actual referee decision in the videos (most cut before we can see what they gave), I'm talking about what the FIFA presentation says should be given for each
 
refeire said:
Just to clarify I'm not speaking about the actual referee decision in the videos (most cut before we can see what they gave), I'm talking about what the FIFA presentation says should be given for each
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If you mention the specific slide numbers you are comparing, it would be helpful
 
refeire said:
Any handball above the head is to be penalised, it is not deemed a natural position.

The only exception to this is if the player is in the process of trying to control the ball, it can be deemed a natural position (unless they deliberately move their hand to touch it).
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As can be seen, a referee can tie himself in knots trying to figure out a definitive answer to any less-than-obvious handball scenario.

Try this approach (works for me):

1. Was it (in your opinion) deliberate?
2. Could the player (in your opinion) have got their hand/arm out of the way?

Based on the snapshot of the incident you have at the time, if the answer to both the above is "No". Then play on. ;) 👍
 
@Kes offers great practical advice on this.

I also find it helpful to think a bit historically on what this all means. For decades, handling was only an offense if it was "deliberate," and for decades before that, only it was "intentional." With time, players got sneaky in trying to gain an advantage by making it look like their deliberate actions were inadvertent. Biggering (my shorthand for making oneself unnaturally bigger) arose as a concept to help referees identify those disguised actions--a player deliberately putting his arm somewhere that it could be fortuitously struck by the ball. So the concept is really to differentiate an arm that is where an honest player would have it and where a sneaky player would have--we're going to punish the sneaky player and not let him get away with his trick. That isn't exactly Kes's #2, but I think it's pretty close.

Mercifully the misguided efforts of 19-20 and 20-21 to identify and define every possible scenario have gone by the wayside to take us back where we were before*, but to add the biggering discussion directly to Law 12 to help Rs identify the sneaky miscreants. And the clause about justifiable by what they are doing is there to help make clear that we are really looking for something under the movement showing the player was doing something to try to create an advantage for himself.

_______
*Except for the totally accidental handball by an attacker who scores. This was not part of the Laws until recently--though we always did start with a healthy dose of skepticism as to whether any such plays were truly incidental.
 
My go-to question is, could he have avoided the handling? If yes I almost always give it.

There are times you can avoid handling even if your hand is in a natural position. And if your hand is in an unnatural position position then you can avoid contact by not having it there.
 
one said:
My go-to question is, could he have avoided the handling? If yes I almost always give it.

There are times you can avoid handling even if your hand is in a natural position. And if your hand is in an unnatural position position then you can avoid contact by not having it there.
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If you can avoid the contact and choose not to, that is a clear example of deliberately handling the ball.
 
socal lurker said:
If you can avoid the contact and choose not to, that is a clear example of deliberately handling the ball.
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It's could also be an example of what you call biggering (how appropriate that my autocorrect changes this to buggering 😊). You can avoid contact by not deliberately biggering.
 
An example from my own game recently. A player taking a shot from about 5 yards outside the centre of the penalty area, about 4 defenders lined up in front.

One defender jumps as the shot is made and swings around in the air, the ball bounces off their arm.

I gave the free kick.

What would you guys have given as a sanction, if any?
 
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