Penalty Scenarios

[MR1]

Hi all,

Fairly new ref here, looking for some advice based on an incident in a game today.

Defender on his own penalty spot with his back to goal. The ball is coming in from his left, it’s going to bounce in front of him, he’s getting ready for the bounce with the intention to chest it down and then clear.

In preparation to chest the ball he’s taken a position of slightly crouched knees with both arms fully extended sideways out for balance (think T-shape).

Problem is the ball doesn’t bounce true, it jags out to his right, missing his chest, he instinctively moves his right arm to the ball to control it, it makes contact with lower arm and there is an attacker near by. I blow for a penalty. No real complaints, other than from the offender, and even his was a very polite (genuinely) “but ref I didn’t mean it, it was accidental”

I’m only in my first full season, so even what I think are obvious calls still get me thinking. And his “ref I didn’t mean it” got me thinking:

1. Did I make the right decision?

2 if it was the same scenario but he didn’t move hand to ball, ie he set up for the chest, arms were out to balance his crouch stance, ball jags away and hits his lower arm, but ball to hand not hand to ball, and NO attacker near by. Would that be a penalty?

3, Same scenario as above, but this time with an attacker near by who would have got the ball if it hadn’t hit the defenders arm (ball to arm). Would that be a pen?

 

[socal lurker]

Let’s start with dismissing 3: whether or not there is an attacker there is wholly irrelevant to whether it is handling. For handling by a defender, all we care about is whether it was deliberate or he was making himself unnatur bigger for what he was doing.

for 1, as you describe it, he deliberately blocked the ball with his arm. That is deliberate handling and the right call. (The only time we care about instinctive or reflexive action is when a player is reflexively protecting himself from a ball coming close and at velocity.)

For 2, again the presence or absence of an opponent is irrelevant. It isn't deliberate so the only question is whether he was making himself unnaturally bigger for what he was doing. That is up to the R as to whether the position of the arms were natural or extended. In soccer, we don’t consider a defenders arms natural when he makes a T of them with a reasonable expectation of a ball coming. As I picture what you describe, I have a hand ball offense.

 

[socal lurker]

The concept of making oneself bigger began as a kind of deliberate handling. The underlying concept was that the player is deliberately putting his arm somewhere to take space away from his opponents in the hope the ball would “accidentally“ hit his arm and he would not be punished. So the concept arose from trying to catch sneaky players trying to hide their offense. It became a bit more when it was incorporated into the hand ball offense. We don’t want to turn innocent contact with the arm into an offense. But we also want players to take reasonable care to avoid being hit in the arm. So the arms fon’t have to be pinned to the body, but we expect that the natural place for the arms of a defender are reasonably close to the body, not apart from the body in a way that unnaturally takes up an excessive amount of space. That is fundamentally a judgment call for the ref, and there is a fair amount of gray area where different refs are going to make different calls. The younger the players, the more forgiving we are about where their arms are, as they lack the coordination to keep their arms close the same way we would expect a professional to do.

 

[MR1]

The concept of making oneself bigger began as a kind of deliberate handling. The underlying concept was that the player is deliberately putting his arm somewhere to take space away from his opponents in the hope the ball would “accidentally“ hit his arm and he would not be punished. So the concept arose from trying to catch sneaky players trying to hide their offense. It became a bit more when it was incorporated into the hand ball offense. We don’t want to turn innocent contact with the arm into an offense. But we also want players to take reasonable care to avoid being hit in the arm. So the arms fon’t have to be pinned to the body, but we expect that the natural place for the arms of a defender are reasonably close to the body, not apart from the body in a way that unnaturally takes up an excessive amount of space. That is fundamentally a judgment call for the ref, and there is a fair amount of gray area where different refs are going to make different calls. The younger the players, the more forgiving we are about where their arms are, as they lack the coordination to keep their arms close the same way we would expect a professional to do.

Thank you thats helpful and in line with what I thought.

 

[Big Cat]

I think you are right - I think that post is in the wrong thread.

Forum tip: I‘ve clicked on the “Report” at the bottom of the post to report the thread, hopefully the mods will be able to tidy this up (they’re very good)

welcome to the forum.

Yeh, my post was pr!ckly and uncalled for. I've had a private exchange with @MR1 to make amends