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Dundee United v St Mirren - GK handball

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L

LothianRef

Member
I'll post the highlights clip when they're uploaded to Youtube later on, but hopefully I can describe the incident sufficiently. The ball was rolling back towards the goalkeeper, who is deemed to have picked it up outside his area. The replays aren't 100% conclusive, so I'm happy to go with the assistant who replays show is in a very credible position to call it. The keeper is stepping backwards into the area as he picks it up so the still image below doesn't quite tell the full story.
If there is a small part of the ball that is overhanging the line, but the keeper handles the part that is outside - is this an offence?

image.webp
 
The Ref Stop
I asked IFAB about how this Law should be enforced a few months ago. I had always assumed that if any part of the ball was above the line, then the whole ball was in the area and could be handled. But no. They said that if the keeper handled the part of the ball outside the penalty area line, even if part of the ball was in the area, this was a handling offence.
 
There are conflicting guidelines on this.

My understanding of the common convention is, it is where the ball is and not where the point off contact with the hand. So the image in isolation is not a handball.

To support the above convention consider this scenario, but to start with we know that goalkeeper is only exempt from handball inside his own penalty area. Take the above image and change the line the ball is mostly over with to the goal line (but within PA). The ball is in play and where the goalkeeper has touched it is outside the penalty area. If you give the image handball then you would have to give my scenario handball as well. What and where would the restart be? I think you get the point.
 
Ganajin said:
I asked IFAB about how this Law should be enforced a few months ago. I had always assumed that if any part of the ball was above the line, then the whole ball was in the area and could be handled. But no. They said that if the keeper handled the part of the ball outside the penalty area line, even if part of the ball was in the area, this was a handling offence.
Click to expand...
I've also asked them before and received a similar reply.

one said:
There are conflicting guidelines on this.

My understanding of the common convention is, it is where the ball is and not where the point off contact with the hand. So the image in isolation is not a handball.

To support the above convention consider this scenario, but to start with we know that goalkeeper is only exempt from handball inside his own penalty area. Take the above image and change the line the ball is mostly over with to the goal line (but within PA). The ball is in play and where the goalkeeper has touched it is outside the penalty area. If you give the image handball then you would have to give my scenario handball as well. What and where would the restart be? I think you get the point.
Click to expand...
No offence. This is covered in law that offences outside the field of play dictate a restart to which the closes boundary is and therefore a GK handling the ball here would be considered as using his hand withing the PA and as such not an offence. I see where you were going with it...
 
JamesL said:
I've also asked them before and received a similar reply.


No offence. This is covered in law that offences outside the field of play dictate a restart to which the closes boundary is and therefore a GK handling the ball here would be considered as using his hand withing the PA and as such not an offence. I see where you were going with it...
Click to expand...
DO you see the conflict (or at least a catch 22) there? For the "closest boundary line" to apply to this it has to be an offence. But you use the same clause to say it is not an offence which means you cant apply the closest boundary line principle here.
 
For a very long time it was taught, at least in the US, that if any part of the ball was in the PA, the GK could touch any part of the ball. This interpretation, perhaps, arose from ease of enforcement. The first time I heard anyone saying it was an offense to touch the part of the ball outside the PA was a couple of years ago. I wonder if it is something that was driven by implementation of VAR, which would be able to tell what part of the ball is outside the PA for a DOGSOH in a way that would be very difficult for the human eye. Toenail OS meet fingernail DOGSO.
 
Thanks everyone for the responses. Not a simple decision obviously, so always happy to back the onfield officials in their call.
 
I May be shot down for this, but my advice would be, unless anyone here is operating on very high level matches, if the ball is 'in the area' don't be giving handball, even if there is contact with a part of the ball technically not in the area. We don't have the camera angles to back up our decision, even if we're correct.
 
Agree with what @RefereeX says above ^^^^

But, on a hypothetical note does where the ball come from not matter?

Let’s say the ball is moving from inside the penalty area: surely it is inside (and can be handled by the keeper) until the whole ball has crossed the line, denoting it has left the penalty area. If we are saying this is true, then surely the converse holds: if the ball is outside the penalty area then the ball has not moved into the penalty area until the whole ball crosses the line, so the keeper can’t handle it until the whole ball has crossed the line?

Perhaps somewhat pedantic, but that logic makes sense to me.

(But to reiterate, in reality I’ve got to clearly see the keeper handling the ball with all of it out of the area before I’m even thinking of blowing my whistle)
 
Surely, the point where the keeper's hand makes contact with the ball is the decider?

If his point of contact is with a part of the ball that is outside the area = handball?

On a Sunday we would never know but VAR would.
 
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