Question Number: 31214

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 1/30/2017

Petr of Prague, Czech Republic Czech Republic asks...

Hello, my question is about handball. Player hits the ball with the chest, front side of the shoulder and maybe part of the biceps in one. Biceps is strictly close to the body and arm under biceps is not close to the body (perhaps from the elbow to the fingertips). Is it handball or not? A lot of the judges says that if the hand is close to the body, so it is not an offense:-) I am thinking about some different variants (f.e. part of the arm close to the body vs. whole arm close to the body etc.) Thanks!

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Petr,
The biceps are included as part of the arms but the main question is simply whether any handling was intentional or not. The closeness of the arm to the body, while it may play a part in the determination, is not in and of itself a definite indication of intent - or, as the law puts it:

''the position of the hand does not necessarily mean that there is an infringement''

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Petr
In the English League Cup game between Liverpool and Southampton it looked like this what you described occurred. Shane Long of Southampton moved his upper chest across to stop a shot. The ball hit him on the upper chest with his arm by his side. Liverpool appealed for a penalty and it was turned away by the Referee Martin Atkinson. Video replay could not prove conclusively that the ball struck his arm and that was the referees opinion as well.
Now look at this video
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tG51x6QMc10
The ball clearly strikes the upper arm. Move the ball towards the chest and it is a much more difficult call, one that I would not call due to doubt as to whether it was played by the arm or not.

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