Question Number: 31415

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 4/2/2017

RE: Rec Adult

russell of Sydney, Australia asks...

Penalty ot not.

http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/article/2017/04/02/schalke-mascot-shows-referee-red-card-over-penalty-decision

On field decision was no penalty.

Based on angles shown - and knowing the design before seeing the footage - I'd say no penalty as well.

I'd reason that the defenders arms are in what would be a normal position for someone reaching to get to a ball of that kind.

The ball appears to bounces up to the arm.

Would you say (based on these angle shown) that the on field call is correct or not?

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi
Not deliberate handling. The player has his arm raised in the position before the ball rears up off his foot to hit it. That is not deliberate and the player did not have the time or knowledge to avoid the ball. Unfortunately these type of contact always draw debate. Due to the timing and what was at stake in a local derby the decision clearly got the home team animated to the point of unsatisfactory conduct.
Now many in the game opine that it is handling much like the commentator here. There is no doubt that it hits a raised arm. It is for this reason that IFAB needs to deal with the handling advice and instruction.
At the moment we understand deliberate contact means that the player could have avoided the touch but chose not to, that the player’s arms were not in a normal playing position at the time, or that the player deliberately continued an initially accidental contact for the purpose of gaining an unfair advantage.
I would safely say that so far this season I have only had one clear handling where the player intentionally used his hand to move the ball to his benefit. All of the other handlings have been situations where the ball hit the players while making themselves bigger or using raised arms to assist in charging down a ball from short range. I have also waved away countless ball to hand situation where the ball hit the player accidentally much like this situation.
So for me we have three differing situations.
1. The clear use of the hand to manipulate the ball. Rare
2. The ball hitting raised arms while charging down the ball / making themselves bigger. Frequent
3. The ball hitting a player accidentally as it rears up off the ground or off the body. Frequent
The easy one is no 1 and most likely a caution whereas the difference between 2 / 3 is so much opinion based that we get varying calls. Perhaps another referee could be of the view here that the player should not have had his arm raised up and therefore take the consequence for that position. The other factor of influence is that, while it should not be, is that this might be called out the field as a DFK while inside the penalty area it is a much bigger decision and the referees threshold may be much higher. It is probably for that reason that we know find ourselves in the DHB call every time the ball touches a hand or arm.

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

Hi Russell,

Difficult decision. Clearly there was no time to react, so we're considering whether the arms were in a natural position for the type of movement. The way I like to think of deliberate handling is - could the player reasonably have been expected to avoid contact with the arm?
I think the arm was, arguably, in a natural position - even if it was raised - and the bounce the ball took off the foot was completely unexpected. The challenge may have had something to do with that as it may have influenced how he played the ball. No offence for me.

It's worth pointing out that the fact that the ball landed at his feet is irrelevant - it's either deliberate or not; 'accidental but beneficial' is not a foul

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

HI Russell,
easy decision for me in no way was this a deliberate handling. The ball deflected into the arm period! Great correct & gutsy call. The IFAB, FIFA and European league should USE this to EXPLAIN the concept. It would help correct the misconceptions if they PUBLICALLY went on record to support the referee decision. I disagree this should called a DFK ANYWHERE on the field it was an accident not a deliberate action where the arms are used to takeaway space from where the ball was likely to be nor was their time to react any better than the try to pull away.
Cheers