Handball

[themossman]

Fuck me. What they are effectively saying is you’ve got to deliberately carry yourself so as to minimise the chance of the ball hitting your arm. Which is absurd.

However many times they reword the rules the ref is basically making a best guess about intent. And nobody bar the player will ever know if it’s the right decision or not. It would be better if they just said that rather than all that bollocks about silhouettes.

[dave shelley]

Another case of them fucking about with something that doesn't need fucking about with if a little common sense is applied, but we all know that common sense and football are never used or thought of in the same sentence. Just a case of Ellery and his ilk sitting around trying to think of ways to justify their phoney-baloney jobs.

[KRS]

They've replaced the ambiguous intent aspect with an even more ambiguous player silhouette so it's still open to the refs interpretation which will be dependent on the physical position of the offending player in motion. They've made it clear that any handball by the attacking team that results in a goal or goal scoring chance will be flagged, so why don't they just make the same call for handball situations by the defending team and reduce the punishment to a direct free kick rather than penalty unless there was any doubt of intent in preventing a goal or goal scoring chance in the penalty area. As an example, the PSV incident the other day would have resulted in a free kick rather than a harshly awarded game changing penalty in the final minute.

[PeterWithesShin]

Under these rules Richard Dunne would never concede a penalty considering the size of his silhouette.

[Ad@m]

No one could ever accuse Richard Dunne of having a "natural silhouette"!

[adrenachrome]

No one could ever accuse Richard Dunne of having a "natural silhouette"!

In the words of a song from my youth, it's nature's way of telling you something's wrong.

Also, what if the player involved is being followed by a moon shadow?  I'm not even going to start in on the Herman's Hermits hit which would only add to the confusion.