Question Number: 30601

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 7/13/2016

RE: Youth to adult, comp and rec.

Barry Stewart of Chilliwack, BC Canada asks...

Euro final.

For those players and fans who like to yell 'hand ball' every time a ball hits a hand or an arm, I wonder who saw the French 'hand ball' at 56:11.

The ball was bouncing around in the French PA and defender #21 made a frantic clearing kick while defender #19 was standing inches outside the PA. When #19 saw the ball coming, he tried to collapse out of the way but the ball hit his forearm then his thigh, then was cleared away.

By where #19 was standing, the arm would have to have been on the line or inside the PA, thus a PK, for the purists who want the call whenever they see the contact. (I'm not in that camp.)

Referee Clattenberg was already up the field and shielded from seeing the contact. The side AR may also have been shielded. No Portuguese players appealed, to their credit. The video replay clearly showed the contact, though the announcers made nothing of it.

Your thoughts?

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Barry
Yes I saw that and the correct decision was made. There is no way that can be called as deliberate handling and it is a good example to be shown of what is not DHB . Koscielny in his effort to just clear the ball drove it straight at his team mate Sagna who tried to avoid the ball and it hit his arm. I think it was not appealed because few saw it on the FOP.
Now throughout the tournament the question of deliberate handling as always was ever present. The penalty award in the Germany v Italy game, the non award in the Wales v England game where a header from Harry Kane hit Ben Davies on the arm and the non award in the England v Slovakia game. There are countless others. It has now become a major problems in the modern game due to the importance of single goals and I understand that IFAB may try to address it in the coming months. We shall see, yet for the moment the 50-50 scenarios can go either way and they are a no-win situation for the referees as they are certain to incur the ire of the team for whom the decision was unfavourable. I firmly believe that most ball handling is not deliberate and should not be called.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Firstly I'd like to say that I agree that this was not an example of deliberate handling, using the criteria that the Laws recommend. Both because of the distance involved and the 'unexpected ball' nature of the play, which left a lack of time for the player to react, there was no way for the player to avoid the ball hitting his arm.

There is an old saying in refereeing circles that if you never gave a single free kick for handling, you'd probably be right about 99% of the time. That may be a slight exaggeration - but only slight.
 
As Ref McHugh states, the vexed question of handling offences comes up for debate with great regularity and it seems likely to be one of the next items to be considered for a potential law update by the IFAB. At a recent joint meeting of the IFAB's Football Advisory and Technical Advisory Panels, held in Amsterdam on May 19, handball was one of the main considerations. According to the IFAB's press release, the discussions centred around whether or not amendments could be made to help match officials interpret and apply the Law more consistently. Among other things, at least based on an interview David Elleray gave to the Times newspaper, this will include clearly defining what is a natural and unnatural position of the arm for handball.