The Ref Stop

Handball

You will all be very pleased to know… After writing this this week I had not one, but TWO penalty appeals in my game on Saturday both for handball. I had decided to adopt the ‘ref to the laws approach’ and just be consistent throughout and it worked, neither were handball and no one really complained that much. Ironically, the only handball I gave was a free kick that the NAR flagged for, it was right in front of him and he had a better view as the players back was to me so I went with him so we didn’t look stupid, I wouldn’t have given it myself so perhaps I should have overruled him. Anyway no complaints.

Guess I will carry on like that, thanks for the advice all.
 
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The Ref Stop
Viridis1886 said:
I'm adding those to my "Useful refereeing things to say to players" spreadsheet. 👍🏻
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Used both yesterday. Very effective.

I even had a player who benefited from it on the half way line and then proceeded to have a shot on goal that just missed. Unfortunately I then had to explain to both teams that if it had gone in, then it wouldn't have counted even though it wasn't handball at that time. 🤦🏻‍♂️
 
Viridis1886 said:
Used both yesterday. Very effective.

I even had a player who benefited from it on the half way line and then proceeded to have a shot on goal that just missed. Unfortunately I then had to explain to both teams that if it had gone in, then it wouldn't have counted even though it wasn't handball at that time. 🤦🏻‍♂️
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The scoring chance or goal needs to be immediate so if its halfway line I doubt very much it was immediate, thus making it not an offence. But yhtbt and you were the referee
 
JamesL said:
The scoring chance or goal needs to be immediate so if its halfway line I doubt very much it was immediate, thus making it not an offence. But yhtbt and you were the referee
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It hit his arm (close proximity), sat up nicely and he took a shot. Just missed top corner. It was probably more luck than judgement!
 
JamesL said:
The scoring chance or goal needs to be immediate so if its halfway line I doubt very much it was immediate, thus making it not an offence. But yhtbt and you were the referee
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This immediate ethos has too many combinations for me, a player could handle it on the 18, roll it in, no goal
The same player could handle it 40 yards out, melt it, ( so it gets over the line) the same time as the roll), and its not classed as immediate

should the law be distance related instead?
 
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Anubis said:
This immediate ethos has too many combinations for me, a player could handle it on the 18, roll it in, no goal
The same player could handle it 40 yards out, melt it, ( so it gets over the linethe same time as the roll) and its not classed as immediate

should the law be distance related instead?
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So this has got me thinking and therefore confused. We might have different units of "immediate".

In your example above "immediate" is time - say 3 seconds for the roll of the ball from 18yds to the goal line or 3 seconds for the 40yd melter.

In my example "immediate" is the next action(s) of the offending player.

I admit that I don't know in my example when the actions stop being immediate? If he were to dribble another 20yds going past a couple of tackles then the "immediate" passes. Handball, set up, shot = immediate.

Discuss.
 
Viridis1886 said:
So this has got me thinking and therefore confused. We might have different units of "immediate".

In your example above "immediate" is time - say 3 seconds for the roll of the ball from 18yds to the goal line or 3 seconds for the 40yd melter.

In my example "immediate" is the next action(s) of the offending player.

I admit that I don't know in my example when the actions stop being immediate? If he were to dribble another 20yds going past a couple of tackles then the "immediate" passes. Handball, set up, shot = immediate.

Discuss.
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I think your gut instinct on this is correct. The intent of the law is to avoid the attacking team immediately benefitting from an accidental handball. So, if someone on the halfway line accidentally handballs it and then immediately punts it 50m into the goal, this should be disallowed, even if it takes the ball say 3 seconds to actually go into the net. Whereas (rightly or wrongly) if the same player dribbles 10m and then shoots or passes it to team mate who shoots, this should be allowed. Personally, I'd do away with this facet of the handball law entirely .. but that's another story :)
 
Viridis1886 said:
So this has got me thinking and therefore confused. We might have different units of "immediate".

In your example above "immediate" is time - say 3 seconds for the roll of the ball from 18yds to the goal line or 3 seconds for the 40yd melter.

In my example "immediate" is the next action(s) of the offending player.

I admit that I don't know in my example when the actions stop being immediate? If he were to dribble another 20yds going past a couple of tackles then the "immediate" passes. Handball, set up, shot = immediate.

Discuss.
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Yeah, I think "next action or two" is a good way to think about it, agree with your stance on this.
 
Anubis said:
If you have folk who cant toss a coin, I hope helpers are avail to tie shoelaces
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Most teenagers have never had to toss a coin, so we keep the process simple.
Having seen coins land in mud sideways on, and a referee banging heads with a captain as they both stoop to pick up, we will keep it simple!
 
Russell Jones said:
It's one of those where we ALL need to hang in there and do what is right based on the most recent law change. The great news is that IFAB hasn't tinkered with it for next season, so we have another whole year of it getting bedded in. IMO the revision to handball has finally got it to a great place .. where players are allowed to do what they want/need to do (run, jump, kick, head) without fear of being penalised when their arms come away from their body in a manner which is entirely natural for those actions.

To help the 'selling' of this, I agree with @RobOda , consistency is vital. Additionally, immediate loud communication really helps ... along the lines of "No Intent" or "Natural Position".

I'd estimate I currently turn down at least half a dozen handball appeals in each game. We are still in a world where players and officials will claim handball whenever the ball hits an opponents' arm. Let's not do them the satisfaction of rewarding the vast majority of these appeals which are incorrect!
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Nice to read a sensible post on handball. I still don't think many referees are taking notice of the part of the law which says they should take into consideration the arm position in relation to the body movement. Even pundits and ex - referee "experts" are still coming out with "arms away from the body - unnatural position " without looking at why the arms are there.
 
Russell Jones said:
The intent of the law is to avoid the attacking team immediately benefitting from an accidental handball. So, if someone on the halfway line accidentally handballs it and then immediately punts it 50m into the goal, this should be disallowed, even if it takes the ball say 3 seconds to actually go into the net. Whereas (rightly or wrongly) if the same player dribbles 10m and then shoots or passes it to team mate who shoots, this should be allowed. Personally, I'd do away with this facet of the handball law entirely .. but that's another story :)
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Me too.

The concept of a handball offence being deliberate/intentional is what the LOTG should be based on - not some random consequence.
 
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