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#Post#: 100793--------------------------------------------------
Re: Crystal Palace v Chelsea - D England (VAR M Donohue)
DIR By: Leggy
Date: January 26, 2026, 11:15 am
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Firstly, there are two things troubling with this sentence:
"While we may not like it, ultimately what does football expect
here? Personally I suggest football expects that justifiable
position or not, that we can't accept that a player can use
their arm to prevent a goal being scored".
i) There is too much said about "what football expects" - what
football (and any other sport) expects is for the Laws to be
clear and correctly enforced.
ii) If the "offence" was not deliberate, then the player did not
use their arm to prevent a goal being scored. The ball hit his
arm, that is entirely different. The ball can hit the
goal-post, but that it not a deliberate act by the goal-post!
Secondly, where have we got to in this endless (and futile)
attempt to absolutely define hand-ball whereby a referee is
announcing to a full stadium (and on Live TV) that no deliberate
offence has been commited but he is going to award a penalty
kick and caution the player??
Please can we stop trying to define everything, revert to simple
wording and leave it to the discretion of well trained referees.
#Post#: 100794--------------------------------------------------
Re: Crystal Palace v Chelsea - D England (VAR M Donohue)
DIR By: Leggy
Date: January 26, 2026, 11:21 am
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PS: If I have read the re-printed extracts of Law 12 (above)
correctly, then it appears to have a sanction listed for an
offence that is not identified - in the Law - as an offence.
Sloppy drafting / wording leads to law interpretation that could
be wrong, confusing or contradictory. The aim should always be
for the interprtation to be correct, clear and unambiguous.
#Post#: 100805--------------------------------------------------
Re: Crystal Palace v Chelsea - D England (VAR M Donohue)
DIR By: rustyref
Date: January 26, 2026, 1:14 pm
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For completeness, this was the rationale for the 2024 law change
that Dermot referred to. Nothing to do with a shot being on
target, rather to bring it in line with other DOGSO offences so
that players who give away a penalty as a consequence of their
arm position aren't sent off.
Non-deliberate handball offences are usually the result of a
player attempting to play fairly, so when a penalty kick is
awarded for such offences, the same philosophy should apply as
for offences (fouls) which are an attempt to play the ball or a
challenge for the ball, i.e. DOGSO offences result in a yellow
card and SPA offences result in no card. Deliberate handball
remains a red-card offence when a penalty kick is awarded, as it
is similar to holding, pulling, pushing, no possibility to play
the ball etc
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