"irrespective if the touch is deliberate" is just made up.
Do you have a link to the page that's on? I've just had a quick look and I can't find anything exactly matching this wording. I did however find the following, which seems very similar to it in principle.The passage shown is taken from this season's law updates, available on The FA's website.
The following ‘handball’ situations, even if accidental, will be a free kick:
- [...]
- the ball touches a player’s hand/arm which has made their body unnaturally bigger
- the ball touches a player’s hand/arm when it is above their shoulder (unless the player has deliberately played the ball which then touches their hand/arm)
Actually it's the other way around . The second set are (usually ) not handball unless the first set applies.OK - now I understand your point. The LOTG state "usually" because they then follow it with a paragraph of "not usually" - the first set of examples are a handling offence unless one of the exceptions in the second set applies.
That's the same link I already gave. It doesn't contain the wording in the OP.http://www.thefa.com/football-rules...ootball-11-11/2019-2020-law-changes-explained is the link, Peter.
I am unclear as to why you think "usually" should be in there?
It would not have helped in this case. I am pretty sure 'usually' (or not usually) was deliberately put in there to give the referee some discression on edge cases where it doesn't fit the defention like the one I mentioned above.Why, oh why, can't IFAB hire one of those underpaid linguistics grad students out there to edit their language so that it says what they think it says?