The Ref Stop

Heads it onto his hand

I think @Dan56 deserves the monthly RefChat award.

And I have a follow up question that I just alluded to: can an arm above the shoulder also be making oneself unnaturally bigger... can we sanction a handball where a player plays the ball themselves onto the own hand above shoulder height because we believe they have made themselves unnaturally bigger? (I am thinking of the Mr Shakira case from 2018 was it?)
 
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Santa Sangria said: "And I have a follow up question that I just alluded to: can an arm above the shoulder also be making oneself unnaturally bigger... can we sanction a handball where a player plays the ball themselves onto the own hand above shoulder height because we believe they have made themselves unnaturally bigger? (I am thinking of the Mr Shakira case from 2018 was it?)"

Technically, I would say no. The fact that the Law mentions raised arms as a separate case, means we should treat them separately. Just as we need to treat the outstretched arm of a player falling to the ground as an exception to making the body bigger.
 
Dan56 said:
Technically, I would say no. The fact that the Law mentions raised arms as a separate case, means we should treat them separately.
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I would take this on face value if everytime IFAB worded something some way, it was because they meant it that way. But I think it's not the case here as many other cases when the wording only lasts for a season or two.
I think the reason they have the two points seperate is that one already existed (unnatural postion) and they other was added because some people misinterpreted the prior one. For instance some interpreted that a hand is always in a natural position when it's above shoulder and a player is jumping for a header.
I am not sure of this but I am sure that IFAB don't always mean what they say.
 
one said:
I am not sure of this but I am sure that IFAB don't always mean what they say.
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Yup, yup, and yup!!

On the plus side, they got rid of that "usually" nonsense . . .

I think the answer on the can it be both unnaturally bigger and above the shoulder is probably best resolved by reverting to "deliberate"--unnaturally bigger was a concept that got used to identify deliberate (but sneaky) actions by players before the rewrite of hand ball offenses. So if, ITOOTR, the arm above the shoulder is more than just an arm above the shoulder and is there to make the player bigger, it is probably a deliberate handling anyway. At the end of the day, the revisions do some to get to more consistency in different places, but they are far from complete and clear for all cases.
 
one said:
I think the reason they have the two points seperate is that one already existed (unnatural postion) and they other was added because some people misinterpreted the prior one. For instance some interpreted that a hand is always in a natural position when it's above shoulder and a player is jumping for a header.
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You may well be right. But it is clear they only attached the phrase unless the player deliberately plays the ball which then touches their hand/arm to the bullet point about raised arms. This is clearly deliberate. They may change it next year, but until they do we need to enforce it.
 
I was advised by my RDO to never blow when it's a miskick or headed onto their own arm unless it's an attacking player.
 
santa sangria said:
I think @Dan56 deserves the monthly RefChat award.

And I have a follow up question that I just alluded to: can an arm above the shoulder also be making oneself unnaturally bigger... can we sanction a handball where a player plays the ball themselves onto the own hand above shoulder height because we believe they have made themselves unnaturally bigger? (I am thinking of the Mr Shakira case from 2018 was it?)
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By Mr Shakira Do u mean pique? And if I remember this was headed by an opponent who was close so would be an offence?
 
As a group of referees we cannot come to a common census suggest the law is too complicated to understand.

Is there a list of natural and unnatural positions for arms to be in, especially when jumping to head the ball for example?

For me if a defender heads it and then hits his hand accidentally we should play on. That's the spirit of the game.
 
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Kent Ref said:
As a group of referees we cannot come to a common census suggest the law is too complicated to understand.

Is there a list of natural and unnatural positions for arms to be in, especially when jumping to head the ball for example?

For me if a defender heads it and then hits his hand accidentally we should play on. That's the spirit of the game.
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Good idea. But I don't know from the original post if this was accidental or not though. In fact, the referee who wrote it probably doesn't have the telepathic abilities required to know if it was accidental or not either. What a frustrating problem.

Perhaps if you were to describe how a referee should decide if a ball-to-arm contact can be classed as deliberate or accidental, we might be able to clear this up?
 
There is inherent problems with formulating words to describe actions which constitute intent. (Wow I don't believe I got that sentence together. IFAB here I come :) ).

As soon as you say 'this' action means no intent then player can use that very action to deliberately handle the ball (deliberately heading the ball to their own hand). Conversely an action that can be said to mean intent could be unjustly judged for handball. Take a defender on the ground with hand above shoulder punching the ground because he was hurt in a tackle. If an attacker takes advantage of this and role the ball to the defenders hand, is this an offence? Remember there is no more usually or not usually in the LOTG.

When intent is involved, the law should simply describe the offence and give a set of considerations and leave it to the referee to judge. This is what we had except for they were not able to get their considerations right. Instead of fixing the considerations they replace them with criteria. We still have a problem.
 
As the OP, I can clarify it was utterly unintentional that the defender headed the ball onto his own hand; there was nothing deliberate about it at all: he jumped, headed it, it struck his hand (which was above shoulder height), and the ball fell at his feet. My take away from all the feedback here (for which, much thanks) is that I was right to doubt my original decision and in future such an incident (rare - this hasn't happened for me before in my five years of reffing) should go unpunished. I've just re-read the Law again and satisfied myself I've got it straight now - thanks again for all input.
 
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This video is what I watch over and over again to understand the handball...https://vimeo.com/user90259529

There are Spanish and English videos on this page. English videos are below the Spanish ones. The are two videos for Law 12. The longer one covers handballs. It's about 5 minutes long and right around the 2:10 mark is where it covers this topic of the arm above the head. Based on these videos, a defender accidentally heading the ball into his own arm even when it's above his head is NOT a handball. Only time it would be a handball is if he somehow scored a goal from it or created a goal scoring chance....or if the referee felt like he purposefully did it somehow because an intentional handball is always a handball. I hope the video works.
 
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