It is an offence if a player:
- 1. deliberately touches the ball with their hand/arm, including moving the hand/arm towards the ball
- 2. gains possession/control of the ball after it has touched their hand/arm and then:
- 2(a) scores in the opponents’ goal
- 2(b) creates a goal-scoring opportunity
- 3. scores in the opponents’ goal directly from their hand/arm, even if accidental, including by the goalkeeper
Highlighted in red are the results of actions taken by a player in committing the offence of handball. Both results are the same but the law leading to each result is different.
In number 3 it would take a minimum of one touch inclusive of handball to score in the opponents goal.
In number 2(a) it would take a minimum of two touches inclusive of handball to complete the offence or else it would be no different from number 3.
The addition of number 3 by IFAB conclusively means that the player in number 2 must be the player who makes the first touch after the handball and explains why the wording of gains possession/control is there.
Therefore he would not only have to be the player that has the first touch
after the handball to score in the opponents goal but also the first player to touch the ball
after the handball to create a goal scoring opportunity.
The argument suggesting that Laporte created a goal scoring opportunity with the deflection is not supported by the rules, as rule 2 clearly states he must have gained possession or control of the ball.
If the deflection off the arm had gone straight into the goal then the offence would have been covered in number 3 above. If he had somehow struck the ball into the net after the handball then he would have satisfied the conditions in rule 2.
It angers me that these decisions based on flawed understanding of the rules are going to continue unchallenged, or unfortunately challenged by those with the same flawed understanding.