From the 05-Mar-2021 clarification: it is a handball offence if a player: 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; or The part I emphasized above is added language, yes? So, if a player's arms move up, out, etc. as they often do (for balance?) when jumping, sliding, twisting, etc., they are saying that is to be taken into account ("justifiable by") when determining if they made their body "unnaturally bigger" (handball) OR if it was a natural "movement for that specific situation" (no handball)?
I read that three times and still struggle with exactly what IFAB is trying to say. We are getting into “The beatings will continue until morale approves” territory.
The fact that this is coming out less than 24 hours after Fulham lost that goal is hilarious. I mean it’s comically bad timing. You could not make that up if you tried.
No kidding. Add to it the handling that wasn’t given in the Liverpool v Chelsea game and it’s a whole mess of confusing. That and could they have chosen a more subjective standard? Natural for the moment. I’d love to to see them use the all the handling decisions we’ve discussed in this thread and give rulings. I’d be very curious to see what they say is natural.
It's been reported, and the release here seems to support, that the "above the shoulder" bullet point has been removed. It's all just "unnaturally bigger" in that section now, with the caveat that the player's overall movement must be considered in context. It really just brings us back to where we were before except that we used to say that making oneself bigger was deliberate handling so that it fit the text of the Law. Plus there's still the accidental attacking handball in a yet further limited context. It's a move back towards greater subjectivity, which in the age of the VAR probably means fewer reviews for handball incidents.
It’s pretty classic IFAB. “We weren’t wrong, the changes we made were correct. Oh by the way here’s another change.” “This puts us back to where we were before your changes, you just used 5 paragraphs to say it when before it was one sentence.” “No, this is totally different”
Had a coach last year propose post-game that his player's extended arm was "in a natural position for balance when sliding" and that keeping his arm down "would not be natural".... Even though it was clear handling both then and now (shot arm straight up to block a crossing pass), I suspect he will gladly refer to this clarification if it ever happens again.
I don't think it has anything to do with a midseason change. The meeting was the annual meeting at which IFAB modifies the LOTG. These will be the adjustments we see in the 21-22 LOTG.
Serious question. Is this commically bad timing or deliberate? My presumption was that this was in direct reaction to what happened with Fulham and was probably the result of David Elleray banging away at his keyboard and sending a few emails in order to "fix" things ASAP. Is there any indication or reason to believe this was in the works for awhile and the timing was a hilarious coincidence? EDIT to say I know the AGM meeting is going on now, but I was of the assumption that the speed in which this came out was a reaction to Fulham.
It was the regularly scheduled meeting, so I would imagine the proposed changes were submitted to the Board in advance of the meeting. I can't imagine IFAB making a turn-on-the-dime change based on one event at that meeting. But the timing sure does look odd. But moving quickly is not what IFAB does. They only finally actually addressed the GK headed back to the GK issue in this release. I think we still need to wait and see on the "above the shoulder"--these immediate releases do not always track everything and all the details.
I hope so because did they start telling me that arm position in the Liverpool v Chelsea game is natural I’m going to just tell everyone if they don’t catch the ball for a 10 yard run to the end one it’s fine.
The whole thing is amazing. Will be very interested to see where this lands when the full LOTG text is released. But I agree with what you write here, particularly the last paragraph. Handball has been, since the end of the experimental phase, pretty much treated as an objective decision in VAR competitions. All this tinkering seems to indicate that will be ending. It's probably a good result because it eliminates some of the more farcical technical decisions, but it's also not going to erase any of the arguing we have over handball penalties--if anything, it will increase that. I've said for a long time that the tinkering with the handball law at the same time you introduced VAR has made things really, really dumb. Doing two things that were effectively revolutionary at the same time was bound to have unintended consequences as well as consequences that were entirely foreseeable (the Fulham incident was one of those--we literally talked about how "accidental attacking handball" was fine for an amateur match, but terrible for a professional match with VAR because there was no room for interpretation). Maybe IFAB is learning this lesson now. But there's been so much change over the past several years that it will be difficult to undo the damage and eliminate confusion.
an interesting aspect of the rapid changes and the pandemic is that many players/coaches may never play/coach with the current handball language/interpretations . . . but from watching lots of TV this year, they are going to think they know it based on this season . . .
We seem to be going back to the point where if you never call handball you're going to be technically right 95% of the time. But there's needs to be a huge change in what people expect, because players and coaches still think of foul should be called every time the ball touches their opponent's arm. And there's times where I give a 90 yard free kick to the defense for something that technically isn't the handball offense, but it sure a hell of a lot easier to call it because that's what everyone expects to be called.
The whiplash is staggering. If I understand things correctly, we are at a point where 100% handball penalties at the last World Cup will be 100% not handball penalties at this World Cup after having also more likely than not been not handball penalties at the 2014 World Cup. Here's a question... the penalty that gave France the lead in the World Cup Final... how is that adjuciated at the next World Cup? I think it's still a handball but the subjectivity level now might make it a handball if called, but not a VAR intervention if not initially awarded. We just had a CWC Final decided on a lack of VAR intervention when it was 100% warranted. Did we also have a WC Final result greatly influenced (if not effectively decided) by a VAR intervention that is, less than four years later, no longer a VAR intervention?
My initial read of things is that the law change (based on the language we've seen so far) is more about taking the decision away from VAR except for the more obvious situations. I wouldn't be surprised if the instruction and interpretations still remain somewhat similar. We've just ditched the more objective standard of "above the shoulder" for something with a little more nuance and grey area. A player lunging to block a cross with an arm up will still likely be seen as a handball — even if it might be justifiable as part of the player's movement. But who knows anymore! I'll be really interested to see how these changes will be instructed as we head towards summer.
This should be fun at our grassroots level, where there is probably a good amount of officials who didn't even register the fact that you cannot score a goal from even an accidental handball.
I'm just not paying attention to this crap any more. The vast majority of the coaches in the leagues I work don't know that IFAB exists, let alone that they keep tinkering with the laws. My life will be much easier if I just call handling the way everyone expects me to.
That's kind of like what USSF said about some changes some years ago. "Well, if you've been doing it right all along, there's no change."