Sport <> Football
Referees face frequent pressure over handball decisions that can directly
affect results of games
Football’s lawmakers have agreed that the rule on handball needs to be rewritten to avoid punishment for incidents when it has happened accidentally.
Telegraph Sport revealed earlier this month
that the International FA Board (Ifab) was to discuss rewriting the
rule to remove the word “deliberate” as part of a raft other measures.
At its annual business meeting in Glasgow Ifab said the issue of
handball was “debated at length” with a “more precise and detailed
wording for the different types of handball offences” needed and with an
emphasis on “non-deliberate” handballs. Ifab has agreed that the rules
of the game have to be clearer.
“The most significant clarifications relate to ‘non-deliberate’
handball situations, where there is an unfair ‘outcome/benefit’ due to
the ball making contact with a player’s hand/arm,” it said.
There is a constant debate over what is considered deliberate
handball with penalties often awarded when the ball hits a defender’s
hand at point-blank range.
The handball law has become a regular point of debate in football
One
proposal is for it to be defined as if the ball strikes the arm above
shoulder height. It would also be an offence if the ball hits the arm
below shoulder height but in an unnatural position, which could be
defined as more than eight o’clock or four o’clock from the body. Any
goal scored after striking the arm of an attacking player would be
disallowed.
Ifab have also put forward new proposals – to be voted at its annual general meeting on March 2 – that substitutes will have to leave the pitch at the nearest goal-line or sideline instead of walking to their technical area. This is to avoid timewasting.
Other proposals include abolishing the “ABBA” format for penalty shoot-outs. In that system ‘team A’ take the first penalty, ‘team B’ the second and third, team A the fourth and fifth and so on until each has taken five rather than simply alternating.
The sequence continues if the shootout then goes to sudden death. It has been found to be too complicated.
Other discussions included measures to stop attacking players causing disruption in the defensive wall at free kicks — a situation which often leads to scuffles and arguments and introducing yellow and red cards for team officials.
There will also be changes to the dropped ball procedure, goalkeepers only being required to have one foot on the goal-line when a penalty is taken and the ball will no longer have to leave the penalty area at goal-kicks.
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