Discussions: Football despairs of the handball rule

discussions
Football despairs of the handball rule

At the latest when your own boss loses track, it becomes problematic. “I don’t understand the current rules. I don’t understand them at all,” said UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin recently.

Of course, the boss of the European Football Union understands the game itself. However, he can no longer understand when the video assistant should report to the referee on the field and when an alleged handball should be punished as such. And Ceferin is not alone in this. Not in a long time.

Weekly Discussion

The different interpretation of the handball rule leads to discussions in professional football week after week. Ceferin complained in the Slovenian newspaper “Ekipa” that she “got away from everyone”. Which is why UEFA is now trying to get it under control again. Their new advisory board, which includes a number of star coaches and ex-national players such as the three Germans Rudi Völler, Jürgen Klinsmann and Philipp Lahm, met for the first time this week.

Among other things, the committee suggested that it should be made clear again for the coming season that there is no punishable handball if the ball has previously been deflected off the player’s own body. Especially if it doesn’t result in a goal.

So far, this has not been stated in the rules of the International Football Association Board (Ifab). UEFA cannot change these football rules either. These stipulate that a handball will be penalized if the player concerned intentionally touches the ball with his arm or hand or has previously enlarged his body in an unnatural way and accepted a whistle. “Intention” is the key word around which the different interpretations of the rule revolve – and which, according to ex-Bundesliga referee Lutz Wagner, should be expressed even more clearly.

Wagner: Intention has to be in the foreground

“The rule must be formulated as briefly and concisely as possible and, in my opinion, the intention must always be in the foreground,” said the 59-year-old, who has been a referee instructor at the German Football Association since 2010, the German Press Agency. “So if I also write something in the rules about increasing the defensive area, it should say that it must have been done intentionally for an offense. The current wording ‘unnatural’ leaves too much leeway.” And not only unsettles the referees on the pitch or on the screen. The handball rule also confuses and angers fans and players.

“Two penalties that should never have been a penalty. I hate that,” wrote defender Mats Hummels from Borussia Dortmund about the much-discussed decisions in the Champions League game between Bayern Munich and Manchester City last week on social media . “Maybe we should train to shoot the opponent in the penalty area. So no longer looking for your own teammate, just a hand that’s dangling somewhere,” said coach Niko Kovac from VfL Wolfsburg in January on Sky .

Professionals ask referees

Deniz Aytekin, who has been one of the top referees in Germany for years, reported that it was quite possible that professionals would actively ask him during a game which hand position might be punished. He welcomes that because he can then bring them closer to the current interpretation of the rule. The fact that this is necessary at all illustrates the problem. Many criteria inevitably lead to many different handlings.

“Keeping something simple is the great art and has always been one of football’s greatest strengths,” said Referee-Lehrwart Wagner. However, in view of today’s transparency and multitude of technical possibilities, it is not easy to get back to this. “Everywhere games and scenes from all over the world and from different perspectives can be seen. Everyone can justify their decision on any example that they have seen somewhere, and umpteen different theses arise,” says Wagner.

Wrong decisions must therefore also be clearly named. And the rules are formulated more simply, but more precisely. So that even your own boss climbs through again.

dpa