Question Number: 1112

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct

David Youngs of Irvine, CA USA asks...

The handball call in the recent China-USA womens match has me thinking a lot about hand ball situations. A question that comes to mind is the following: Is it against the rules for a defender to raise his hands above his head to attempt to cut down the chance of the ball passing if this position is established before the ball is kicked and not in an attempt to "play" the ball. For example a wall of players with their backs to the kicker and their arms raised would increase the effectiveness of the wall and yet if the ball did happen to strike one of their arms by accident, it would not seem to fall under the handball requirement of deliberate handling of the ball. Perhaps this situation would fall under unsporting conduct instead, since it is obviously against the spirit of the game.

Answer provided by Referee Victor Matheson

The referee always needs to decide whether a hand ball is intentional or not. Intentionally placing your hands in such a way that a ball is likely to hit them is just as much a foul as raising your hands to hit the ball after it is played. Thus, the wall situation you describe is a hand ball. If the wall hand their hands across their body and the ball hits it, even though that technically sounds like the same thing I describe above, since the hands are right next to the body, it is not a foul since it doesn't influence play in any way. Similarly, if your arms are spread way out as you tackle a player, and the ball hits your arm as your opponent tries to pass the ball by you, I would call that a hand ball as well. As for the Chinese player, this is a very gray area. Were her arms in a normal place for her arms to be or did she extend her arms to make it more likely for the ball to "accidentally" hit her hands? In the first case there should be no hand ball. In the second case, I have no problems with calling a hand ball.

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