The Ref Stop

Handball - your proposed wording

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IFAB is trying to clean up / Clarify LAW 12 in regards to deliberate handball. It is being discussed in various threads here as well.

What does everyone thinks of what the actual law or the wording should be for it to be in line with current expectations, fair, precise and less open to a wide range of interpretations. I will give it go. I am thinking it will be almost impossible to continue to use the word "deliberate" and still keep in line with current exceptions so I am removing it as a hard a criteria for DFK. So here is my suggestion:

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Handling the ball
Handling the ball involves an act of a player making contact with the ball with the hand or arm. A direct free kick is awarded if a player handles the ball in a manner considered by the referee to be careless or reckless.

For handling,
  • Careless is when a player shows a lack of attention or consideration or acts without precaution to avoid handling the ball
  • Reckless is when a player blatantly and intentionally handles the ball to benefit from handling and must be cautioned
The following must be considered:
  • the movement of the hand towards the ball (not the ball towards the hand)
  • the distance between the player and the ball as well as speed of ball and play (unexpected ball)
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Note I have removed "position of the hand" consideration as sometimes taking precaution to avoid handling means the natural position of the hand is not safe (PSG Vs MU!).
Also note this wording removes the need for a clause to disallow goals scored with an unintentional handling as they can be classed as careless.
 
The Ref Stop
Without re-writing the Law, I've always felt that 'avoidable' requires less clarification than 'deliberate'
The former can be fairly judged by an onlooker, whilst the latter is a thought or intent and cannot be determined
 
Why not make it that if the ball hits a player below the elbow, then its classed as handball (much like in field hockey if it touches a players foot, or a knock on in rugby). Take the whole of the deliberate or avoidable out of it.

I would add 2 other statements to clarify though:

1) Handball should not be given if an attacker deliberately plays the ball against the defender - in this case the attack should be cautioned
2) If the handball Denies the Attacking team an obvious goal scoring opportunity, if the referee deems the player to have deliberately handled the ball then he should be Sent Off, otherwise, no further sanction should be made.

For me handball is the most difficult law to interpret. Yes it would mean more free kicks and penalties when defenders are trying to block the ball, especially in and around the penalty area, but as we saw this week, its so open to interpretation that no one can agree on whether an offence has been committed or not, that's not right for anyone involved in the game, the teams, the players, the fans or the officials.
 
All these attempts to totally take the "deliberate" aspect out of handling were tried in the past. What happened was the attack learned to constantly fire hard kicks. anywhere into penalty area. hoping for a lucky hit on a defender's hand. From what was said at the press conference it sounds like only a subset of "non deliberate" will be sanctioned.

The Law might read:

1 All deliberate Handling is an offence.

2 Any non deliberate handling will be an offence if it:

Involves making the body bigger (beyond the natural silhouette) to stop a cross or a shot.

or

Involves hand or arm above shoulder height.

or if an advantage is gained which:

Leads to a goal being scored.
Or leads to possession being kept leading to a promising attack or a goal scoring opportunity


This is pretty much based on Ian Maxwell's comments at the IFAB Press Conference which sounded like he was paraphrasing the actual wording.
 
Don't clarify, change the bloody thing......

"Playing or touching the ball, except a goalkeeper within their own penalty area, is an offence."

Simples
 
I get why "any contact with the hand" can't possibly work, but I'd be interested to see what happened if we abandoned any use of the word deliberate and instead, penalised "any contact with the hand/arm that results in that player of his team gaining an advantage"
 
GraemeS said:
I get why "any contact with the hand" can't possibly work, but I'd be interested to see what happened if we abandoned any use of the word deliberate and instead, penalised "any contact with the hand/arm that results in that player of his team gaining an advantage"
Click to expand...

How do you determine gaining an advantage though? Let's say for example, a player handles the ball and it goes back to their defence far away from any attackers, there's seemingly no advantage gained there. They pass it around for a few minutes and end up scoring. That chance only became because of the original handling! Difficult to assess gaining an advantage unless it's immediate really
 
"Gaining an advantage" in LotG speak though is gaining or retaining possession of the ball. I wouldn't use it for the HB.

I don't think they'll use careless/reckless as HB doesn't equate so well to the LotG use of force context.


I think Ganajin has nailed it except for the "to stop a cross or a shot" part.
They can't really use the "going into or very close to the goal" wording that's used for a save... so perhaps the "silhouette" part (which I hate) might read:

"Involves making the body bigger (beyond the natural silhouette) to gain an advantage".


We are taught that blatant holding is YC. I wonder if that could creep in?
 
Ganajin said:
All these attempts to totally take the "deliberate" aspect out of handling were tried in the past. What happened was the attack learned to constantly fire hard kicks.
Click to expand...
When was this? I might have missed something when reading through the historical changes to the Laws contained in the IFAB minutes but my impression was that from the time the law was first changed to make only intentional handling an offence (in 1902) the law on handling has always included the words intentional(ly) or deliberate. It is true that prior to 1902 it was not specified that handling had to be intentional but there hasn't been a time since (that I am aware of) when it was taken out. Can you tell me when that happened and when the element of intent was reintroduced?
 
Peter Grove said:
When was this? I might have missed something when reading through the historical changes to the Laws contained in the IFAB minutes but my impression was that from the time the law was first changed to make only intentional handling an offence (in 1902) the law on handling has always included the words intentional(ly) or deliberate. It is true that prior to 1902 it was not specified that handling had to be intentional but there hasn't been a time since (that I am aware of) when it was taken out. Can you tell me when that happened and when the element of intent was reintroduced?
Click to expand...

It has never been an actual change in the Law. What happened was an experiment in a minor tournament back in the 50's or 60's (I believe in England but I need to track down reference) which led to such poor results it was quickly abandoned.
 
Ganajin said:
All these attempts to totally take the "deliberate" aspect out of handling were tried in the past. What happened was the attack learned to constantly fire hard kicks. anywhere into penalty area. hoping for a lucky hit on a defender's hand. From what was said at the press conference it sounds like only a subset of "non deliberate" will be sanctioned.

The Law might read:

1 All deliberate Handling is an offence.

2 Any non deliberate handling will be an offence if it:

Involves making the body bigger (beyond the natural silhouette) to stop a cross or a shot.

or

Involves hand or arm above shoulder height.

or if an advantage is gained which:

Leads to a goal being scored.
Or leads to possession being kept leading to a promising attack or a goal scoring opportunity

This is pretty much based on Ian Maxwell's comments at the IFAB Press Conference which sounded like he was paraphrasing the actual wording.
Click to expand...
So your suggestion is based on the proposed changes as recalled by IM in a press conference......great independent thought process @Ganajin!
Why would a simple removal of the word 'deliberate' not work? Other than the single reason given above? Its nonsense by the way......
 
In hockey a touching of the ball with the foot is a strict offence. It is routine for players to knock the ball at a defender's feet to chance a free hit. I fail to see why the same tactic would not occur to footballers.
 
Redster said:
In hockey a touching of the ball with the foot is a strict offence. It is routine for players to knock the ball at a defender's feet to chance a free hit. I fail to see why the same tactic would not occur to footballers.
Click to expand...


The diff being in hockey, you do everything you can to take evasive action on that ball smashing into you full stop....
 
Easy, Just get these VAR boys making the sandwiches and leave the football game to happen naturally, everyone makes mistakes, managers, players, even fans, why should games be ruined by meddling to the eight degree.... Leave it to the one bloke that matters and his two trusty sidekicks, they get most other things right!!
 
Sheffields Finest said:
Easy, Just get these VAR boys making the sandwiches and leave the football game to happen naturally, everyone makes mistakes, managers, players, even fans, why should games be ruined by meddling to the eight degree.... Leave it to the one bloke that matters and his two trusty sidekicks, they get most other things right!!
Click to expand...
Wrong thread, no? There are plenty of places you can go to slate VAR, not sure the "how should handball work" thread is one of them...
 
alexgr said:
How do you determine gaining an advantage though? Let's say for example, a player handles the ball and it goes back to their defence far away from any attackers, there's seemingly no advantage gained there. They pass it around for a few minutes and end up scoring. That chance only became because of the original handling! Difficult to assess gaining an advantage unless it's immediate really
Click to expand...
I appreciate I'm using "advantage" in the general understanding of the word, rather than the LOTG special interpretation, but I would consider that any use of the hand that results in maintaining possession where it would otherwise have gone to an opponent is enough to cause it to be a foul. I'm thinking far stricter criteria than those we currently use to judge [capital-A]Advantage.

But as I say, no idea if this would work or not, but my instinct is that it much more closely aligns with what football expects to be handball.
 
An idea could be to declare all Handballs 'careless' (DFK), but only sanction those which are deliberate
Literally anything would be better than the current farce
 
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