Question Number: 30612

7/16/2016

RE: Any Other

former youth ref of Hordaland, Norway asks...

A final set of questions for you (for a while at least, though I'll keep reading), and not so unlikely this time.
Thank you for your time.
I hope you have found my more unlikely scenarios amusing - I certainly have enjoyed your answers. (I found an old question regarding penalty kick own goals [#29655], so I'm not alone. Given that kick-offs have been clarified I'd say corner.)

1. I have seen you and others mention that deliberate handling are to be looked at for the next changes of the law. What changes would you like to see? (Re: #30588, I think the keeper committing object based handling should become a DFK offence, unsure on red card if this denies a goal.)

2. This may be incorrect (confirmation bias/small sample size), but in situation where players play for time near the corner area I have noticed that while referees are mostly correct, if there are errors they tend to favour the team wanting to play 'properly' (i.e. goal kick, throw in to defence, no free kick when one might often be given). Have you noticed this?

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi
The principle that an own goal cannot be scored from any restart applies throughout the Laws so in the case of the kick off it is a corner kick.
On deliberate handling I believe change is needed. I rarely see genuine out and out deliberate handling of the ball. Most of the handling offences that are called are situations where the ball just hits a players arm or players placing their arms in raised positions with the ball hitting them. For instance the Schweinsteiger handling caused much debate.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jul/08/bastian-schweinsteiger-handball-intentional-germany-france-penalty
IMHO Schweinsteiger never ever intended to handle the ball yet I could see why it was given. Some argue he should not have had his arms there yet IMO it was not to handle the ball. I have given this thought over the years and I think these types of contacts should be ignored and that the only offence is the one where the hand / arm deliberately moves towards the ball. Even in unnatural positions I think that the ball striking a players arm is a lottery as it can miss and it can be given / not given by the referee depending on his opinion at that time. Yes there will be debate about the ones where the player makes himself bigger, taller yet that debates currently exists with no uniformity of call.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FIGGUW3IMOA
In this video the ball hits the players raised arm which is above his head. Is that a natural position? Did he intend to use his hand to play the ball. The referee was 100% correct to not call the DHB. Yet is it really any different from the Schweinsteiger situation other then he played it himself?
In respect of the corner situations older referees look closely for offences and probably err on the side of the defending team. If play can be got out of the corner that helps the game and there is less chances of misconduct by players.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

At the risk of this starting to sound like some kind of mutual admiration society, I'm totally in agreement with Ref McHugh on handling offences. The Law says that the contact between hand and ball must be a deliberate act on the part of the player and for me, in the majority of cases, it simply is not. I mentioned before, a (perhaps slightly exaggerated) aphorism about how a referee who never gave a single handling offence would probably be right about 99% of the time.

I would certainly like to see the IFAB bring more clarity to this area of the law and the statement on the IFAB website that 'amendments could be made to help match officials interpret and apply the Law more consistently' sounds eminently sensible. However as always, the devil is in the details. For instance, David Elleray has been quoted in an interview as saying that the IFAB could provide clear definitions of what is and is not an unnatural arm position. However I think this could prove extremely difficult, if not impossible to clearly delineate. In debates on refereeing websites over specific incidents, you will often find opinions evenly split with the exact same arm position being declared completely natural by some and clearly unnatural by others.

I would rather see the IFAB concentrate on clarifying what should or should not be considered, in the words of the Law, 'a deliberate act of a player making contact with the ball with the hand or arm.'

I actually came up with a set of 'internal guidelines' for myself which, if I had to put them down on paper, would go something like this.

For handling to be considered an offence, the player must deliberately do one of the following:

- initiate the contact - basically, move the hand or arm towards (or into the path of) the ball.
- prolong an initially accidental contact, in order to control or direct the ball.
- avoid moving the hand or arm away from an approaching ball when there was sufficient time/opportunity to do so.

In the example given by Ref McHugh of the recent Bastian Schweinsteiger handball incident, I would not see it fitting into any of the above categories so I would not have given it either.

As far as the 'taking the ball into the corner' incidents, I agree that referees (and AR's, who are often the ones who end up giving these decisions if it's on their side of the field) tend to favour the team trying to get the ball back into play. Although what the attacking team is doing may not be technically illegal, I believe in most cases it is stretching the definition of the 'shielding the ball' provision towards its breaking point.

The 2016/17 edition of the Laws talks about referees applying the 'spirit of the game' in making decisions and to me, it is more against this spirit to try to prevent play from occurring than it is to try and get the ball back into play. Also, as Ref McHugh is (once again) right in saying, giving the decision to the defender (when there might be justification to give it either way) may aid in match control issues by not prolonging a confrontational situation.