"Spin the ball" for throw ins.

Just wondering, is this a myth spreading through grassroots, or is there something in the laws preventing 'spinning' throw ins, or perhaps I'm missing something?

It is two games into the season and in both games I've had a team complain about the opposition 'spinning the ball' from a throw in. I can't see anything in the Laws about it. From what I see on the pitch, the throws are taken with the correct form. It's unusual to get the same complaint twice on the bounce, so I'm a bit confused if I might be missing something - it certainly didn't get brought up by an assessor today, but I forgot to ask him post-match...

The couple grassroot games I've done so far I've seen spinning throws and I've had no complaints. Very strange, there's nothing in the Laws saying throw one can't have spin. So just teams having a moan maybe?

Play on!!!

Ah this one - I was picked up for not calling this on my very first assessment. If the ball is spinning excessively it is unlikely to have been thrown with both hands over the head. More likely one hand more than the other to get distance and spin as a result. This is what I was told.

For me it can sometimes be a symptom of a foul throw when someone is really trying to chuck it BUT not always. I would be very careful saying a spinning ball is a foul throw.

I don't call many foul throws. perhaps there are few I should call but I don't but when reviewing law 15 it doesn't say both hands must provide equal power to the ball it just says both hands must throw the ball.

WilliamD said:

Ah this one - I was picked up for not calling this on my very first assessment. If the ball is spinning excessively it is unlikely to have been thrown with both hands over the head. More likely one hand more than the other to get distance and spin as a result. This is what I was told.

For me it can sometimes be a symptom of a foul throw when someone is really trying to chuck it BUT not always. I would be very careful saying a spinning ball is a foul throw.

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"to have been thrown with both hands over the head" and "More likely one hand more than the other" are not necessarily opposite. The latter is not necessarily against the law either. The law does not require you to use equal force by both hands, only to use both hands to throw it. In fact unless someone is truly ambidextrous, one hand is stronger the the other and the ball will get some degree of spin but lets not get to the physics of it .

The only time I would pull this up is when one hand, while still on the ball, is not used to throw it. This is an action similar to a most basketball shots and doesn't happen very often. And of course I pull it up when its not over the head but may or may not effect the spin anyway.

I wouldn’t concern myself too much with spin once you are satisfied that the throw is taken with the proper technique and not like a basketball throw. I usually find that my eyes spend very little time looking for faults in the throwers technique anyway and generally move to where the ball is heading very quickly. This means that I only ever blow for very obvious foul throws but I would much rather spot an elbow or push in play.

one said:

The only time I would pull this up is when one hand, while still on the ball, is not used to throw it.

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Yes, this is immediately what I started looking out for, but this 100% wasn't happening in either match. It's just odd to get two teams enquiring about it this season as it never even came up last season at all!

I put this in the same category as "you can't call 'mine!'". Technically there may be circumstances where this constitutes a foul throw - but with the current laws a player will have to have taken one hand off the ball for this to be the case now. However, it is something that used to be taught in referee qualification - so there will be a sizeable group of people who still think this is outside the laws.