Question Number: 32596

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 7/16/2018

RE: rec Under 17

Mario Barbafiera of Auckland, Auckland New Zealand asks...

Hi

Don't know if this has been asked, but the Penalty awarded after the VAR intervention between Croatia and France. My initial gut feeling was no penalty, and the fact the ref took so long to decide also makes me wonder. I have read convincing arguments for both views. What is the collective wisdom here?

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

Hi Mario,
Not sure if we 'collectively' share the same view on this one, but here's my thoughts:

There's 2 questions - was the initial decision wrong? If so, was it clearly and obviously wrong? You can say 'yes' to the former without saying 'yes' to the latter.

There's a few things to consider. Position of the arm, movement of the arm, time to react being a few things.

The attacker did touch the ball first - but the change to the trajectory of the ball was minimal. So that hasn't changed what the defender had to react to. If, for instance, the ball was going to miss the defender but the path of the ball was significantly changed at the last moment, then you consider that the defender has had no time to react.

The defender also had a view of the ball the entire time it was crossed in - again, if the defender was unsighted until it passed his opponent, then that's in the defender's favour.

So, the defender has had plenty of time to react to the cross. Now, one could argue that the defender expected the attacker to head the ball in a different direction thus didn't position himself for the ball to go backwards like that - but I think that's a very weak argument at the best of times; in this case, given the goal was behind the players, you should expect the ball to go somewhat in that direction. So given that the eventual path of the ball wasn't a completely unpredictable one, that leaves it being the defender's responsibility to do the most he can to ensure the ball is not going to strike his arms.

And that leaves us with the positioning of the arms. I had to look at it a number of times to work through this decision making process - but I was left with the fact that he jumped with his arms right out to the side. Why on earth would any defender do that?

I find myself making similar arguments to that in favour of the handling penalty in the Australia - France match (this time a French player was penalised). You simply can't be jumping with your arms right out to the side - doing so puts the defender in a position where there's a good chance they're blocking the ball. The onus is on the player to take reasonable steps to minimise the chance of handling the ball. And that means keeping the arms closer to the body when jumping as a defender. Not jumping with arms flailing out to the side.

When defenders are standing in front of an attacker with the ball, they know now to stick their arms right out to the side - it's not different when jumping.

So while the contact occurred while the arms were coming back down, I don't think they should have been there in the first place. The defender has jumped in a manner that broadens his field position using the arms, he's had visibility of the ball and nothing happened to change his reaction time. That makes the handling wholly the defender's responsibility - and that makes it a foul for me.

So the 2nd question is - was it a clear and obvious error? Fortunately this question doesn't affect us as grassroots referees - it's purely a discussion piece. It's difficult to answer this without being party to FIFA's training on 'clear and obvious error'.

I don't think taking a while to reach the decision means it isn't clear and obvious. I don't believe that 'immediately apparent' is a prerequisite for 'clear and obvious'.

I can only wonder - under what circumstances would a VAR review ever leave the referee thinking 'it's a foul, but I can see an argument to say it's not, so I won't change it'?

When the VAR is to intervene is still one of the challenges facing football. The implementation at the World Cup seems to have a fairly low bar on 'clear and obvious' - once the referee thinks it's a foul, the decision gets made. So I think it's consistent with the VAR application this world cup, though I still wonder if it's the best way to implement VAR.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Mario
Thanks for the question.
The soccer world is divided on the penalty decision. Polls that I see are showing 60% no penalty and referees are equally divided. Some senior retired referees are equally divided.
What I have been saying for a very long time now is that most deliberate handlings decisions are now the most difficult calls that referees have to make. It has now got to the point where it depends very much on the referee and the competition. As a result these decision can go either way.
Now I suspect that in this World Cup competition players have been told by referees that a ball hitting a raised arm directly will result in a call of deliberate handling. The only exception is if it bounces off an opponents or another body part changing its trajectory at short distance. In that regards referees have been pretty consistent in the calls with examples including Pique of Spain, Umtiti of France etc.
Perhaps another way to look at it is whether Croatia should benefit from the ball being stopped by an arm as it makes it way into an attacking area. Many cite the fact that the player did not do this deliberately yet his and similar actions have consequences.
I also think that had the penalty not been awarded there would have been as much furore about the decision.
In real time the referee did not see it yet when he did review it he clearly saw the handling contact. There was technical issues with the screen as well which did not help plus resolution on the image of possible contact by the French attacker was not great.
So for me I believe the correct decision was made in the context of the competition. I do not agree with it yet if I, as a referee, am told to call such circumstances that is what I am going to do. FIFA for some time have been talking about penalising ball to hand contact where it occurs in sliding challenges, raised arms etc so this is a continuation of that.
It is for this reason that I have argued that for technical handling it should be a technical offence which has an IDFK restart. Some will say that would be difficult to decide yet I say that we could see this was not deliberate in the sense of clearly stopping the ball a la Suarez v Ghana which would still be a penalty kick.
Clearly something has to change and either we call every single contact as deliberate handling or we try to opine what is a deliberate offence punished by a DFK and what is a technical handling punished by an IDFK. I doubt anyone would have a problem about an IDFK here which takes away the subjective nature f the call and gives a *free* kick rather than the more significant call of a penalty kick.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

HI Mario,
because there WAS so much debate as to what was a deliberate handling in previous WCs FIFA decided to make just about ANY arm/ball contact a foul to appease the players and coaches for uniformity as opposed to opinion.

I do accept the slide issue as a challenge for the ball to be a contact orientated deliberate handling but in these jumping incidents I believe the fact the French player tilted his head, the ball decent caught the defender behind unaware. I see NO DELIBERATE action designed to play the ball with the arm. For the sake of consistency FIFA has chosen accidental handling to be deemed as deliberate if there is no deflection or redirect on an incoming ball despite the defender's line of sight being compromised.

His arms were NOT high or super spread and this idea the arms need to be tight to the side is simply NOT a normal position when jumping. Arms raised ABOVE The head THATS not normal, arms spread as a T , palms out THAT is not normal.

My Colleague Ref McHugh makes one important point and offers a solution.

The fact there was NO deflection off the head of the French player SEEMS to be the defining issue as a similar head to arm foul in a earlier match was not awarded.. The concept is ball flight was unimpeded directly into raised arms.

A possible compromise solution is an INDFK offence instead of PKS for deliberate handling NOT denied as a goal . I thought the PK call was wrong. I think France only earned two of their 4 goals. I think they were assisted by good fortune on the first two.

Cheers

The following questions were asked as a follow up to the above question...

See Question: 32597