Ref Watch

[BufordUSABlue]

Said elsewhere that i thought the ref excellent and as good as we have had in a long time. More of a players ref, who allowed the game to flow and punished what needed to be punished.
Both pens were a joke but i don't hold him accountable for either as the law right now is a fking joke, so he was only administering the nonsense law as it is, otherwise he would be marked down by his assessor/governing body.
Plus, he also completely pissed off Tootal-Man who absolutely lost the plot and his lego head, so he gets extra kudos for this alone!!

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

There's no mention of deflections now in the laws. The relevant bit simply says

• touches the ball with their hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger. A player is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiable by, the player’s body movement for that specific situation. By having their hand/arm in such a position, the player takes a risk of their hand/arm being hit by the ball and being penalised

So the ref only really needed to see whether he thought the hand position was natural or whether it had made the body bigger. We can argue all day about whether it was natural or not, but I don't think the VAR analysis needed to be any longer - unlike the muppet last Saturday who took 15 views to make an easier decision.

That still doesn't clarify for how when the ball rebounds off another part of your body onto your arm you “touch the ball” with it. It's like saying if you go out in a downpour you “touch the rain”. Well actually, no: the rain touches you. World of difference.
The law as it stands is utterly cretinous. Not the ref's fault, true.

 

[MillionMilesAway]

That still doesn't clarify for how when the ball rebounds off another part of your body onto your arm you “touch the ball” with it. It's like saying if you go out in a downpour you “touch the rain”. Well actually, no: the rain touches you. World of difference.
The law as it stands is utterly cretinous. Not the ref's fault, true.

I don't think you'll find many who disagree with this bit.

 

[Sir peace frog]

Var ruling on the akanji penalty was a fucking joke, no one who has ever watched football would think that's a penalty, surely common sense should prevail

 

[Stephen230]

The actual law covering handball isn’t actually particularly confusing and is surprisingly straight forward.

To paraphrase it is only handball if:

1) A player deliberately handles it.
2) Ball hits the player’s hand when he’s made his body unnaturally bigger.
3) Handles the ball whilst scoring.

99% of the controversy comes from the interpretation of B. I think a starting point for some level of understanding and consistency would be if FIFA or IFAB published a standard set of guidelines of how they expect that law to be interpreted, world wide, in every competition. And end the situation we have now where different associations and different competitions are instructing referees to interpret that part of the law to wildly different standards.

 

[jjctid]

The actual law covering handball isn’t actually particularly confusing and is surprisingly straight forward.

To paraphrase it is only handball if:

1) A player deliberately handles it.
2) Ball hits the player’s hand when he’s made his body unnaturally bigger.
3) Handles the ball whilst scoring.

99% of the controversy comes from the interpretation of B. I think a starting point for some level of understanding and consistency would be if FIFA or IFAB published a standard set of guidelines of how they expect that law to be interpreted, world wide, in every competition. And end the situation we have now where different associations and different competitions are instructing referees to interpret that part of the law to wildly different standards.

Is "proximity" taken into account any more?

 

[Stephen230]

Is "proximity" taken into account any more?

Yes. It should be taken into account but it has never formed part of the actual laws of the game. The offence of handball is one short passage.

There’s a document somewhere that I can’t immediately locate, issued by either the Premier League or the ( English ) FA, with multiple video examples of what they consider should be penalised and not penalised incidents. And they explain why, with reference to things like proximity, deflections and how the incident has affected play.

But it’s quite clear that UEFA for one are operating to a whole different level of standards. In fact they only seem one short step short of having every single touch of the ball on the hard or arm as being an offence.

 

[jjctid]

Yes. It should be taken into account but it has never formed part of the actual laws of the game. The offence of handball is one short passage.

There’s a document somewhere that I can’t immediately locate, issued by either the Premier League or the ( English ) FA, with multiple video examples of what they consider should be penalised and not penalised incidents. And they explain why, with reference to things like proximity, deflections and how the incident has affected play.

But it’s quite clear that UEFA for one are operating to a whole different level of standards. In fact they only seem one short step short of having every single touch of the ball on the hard or arm as being an offence.

Thanks for that mate. The Akanji " handball " last night for me was just wrong although in European football would seem to be correct. It actually reminded me of hockey and you might as well just smash it against the opponents hands from close range.

 

[Benzino]

It was a fair performance from the ref. Whenever we’ve come up against an elite team we’ve generally been shit on. Last night he got the majority of the calls right apart from the two penalties. You know he’s had a good performance when ‘Quaver lip’ says he doesn’t like the ref.

 

[Stephen230]

Thanks for that mate. The Akanji " handball " last night for me was just wrong although in European football would seem to be correct. It actually reminded me of hockey and you might as well just smash it against the opponents hands from close range.

I don’t think anybody wants the Akanji one to be the benchmark. But it seems the way UEFA are interpreting things at the moment, the best you can hope for is a degree of consistency, which there does appear to be in their competitions at least.

It’s almost certain that no VAR would have got involved in that incident if it had been in the Premier League.