Thread by @DaleJohnsonESPN

After the Emre Can handball penalty, I thought I'd run through why there's disagreement among referees about whether it's a penalty.

I'll also explain how handball ended up here, with quotes from Pierluigi Collina and David Elleray.

How we're in this mess is still unclear.

Unfortunately no rights vid to embed, so to explain what happened:

Emre Can went to head clear, but the ball glanced off his head and deflected onto his outstretched arm.

Referee Carlos del Cerro Grande gave the pen. Spanish refs MUCH stricter on handball (stats to follow).

The referee judged that Emre Can touches the ball with his hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger.

But what about the clauses for the ball deflecting off the body or when the player is deliberately playing the ball?

First off, the deliberate play (No. 2 here).

The critical subjective clause is if the player deliberately plays the ball AND the arm is above shoulder level.

So is the arm above shoulder level? Or is the arm actually at waist level and out at an unnatural angle?

It's definitely something referees would disagree on.

Let's compare this to Marcos Rojo against Nigeria at the 2018 World Cup (a VAR review rejected by the referee but remember the ref GAVE the Can penalty).

The ref (from Turkey) decided it was deliberate play and the arm at shoulder level is a natural position for the movement.

So the deflection/deliberate play doesn't automatically rule out a penalty.

The interpretation comes down to:

- Did the defender make a deliberate play?
- If so is the defender's arm above shoulder level?
- And is the defender's arm in a natural position for his movement?

There's no doubt that referees will have different opinions on the handball, as with most subjective calls.

But the deflection/deliberate play has been given too much importance, as though it automatically rules out handball.

So why don't we know what handball is now?

In 2019, the IFAB updated the handball law. The plan was to take the guidelines given to referees, and put them in the Laws of the Game for better understanding.

We were instead given a jumbled law. You could take any clause to fit the decision you want (like with Can).

Though the interpretation was used at the 2018 World Cup before added to the LOTG, the IFAB says it did NOT change the law.

So how did handball change in almost every competition, penalised more strictly?

A law not changed but which in reality did and no one now understands?

FIFA refs' chief Pierluigi Collina:

"In 2019, the law was not changed - at least in the sense of handling the ball. What we tried to do in 2019 was to reflect into the Laws of the Game all the criteria the referees were already given.

Pierluigi Collina:

"Those criteria were probably not really well known by the football community because they belong to guidelines given to referees. This was interpreted too strictly.

Pierluigi Collina:

"We tried to offer something more understandable, clearer, so maybe achieving more consistency, in the decision-making of the referees. Unfortunately, the laws of the game were accused because of some wrong decisions taken by referees."

You can certainly say that. It's affected every league - and some worse than others.

- Germany adopted the World Cup interpretation straight after the finals in 2018-19 and had a shock season.
- Italy had an explosion after the law wording changed for 2019-20.

What this does mean is that the Premier League's interpretation (other than the farce in September) is probably far more aligned with what the IFAB intended.

BUT that crazy September means no one really understands what handball is anymore.

It's also interesting that the frequency of handball penalties is higher in the Champions League than any domestic league.

Only La Liga, which has always been stricter on handball, comes close. So you have a Spanish referee in the UCL giving a strict handball decision.

Pierluigi Collina on law for next season:

"The decision was made, in terms of wording and not sense of handling the ball, to make the law more understandable for the football community, to allow the referee to make the final decision based upon the assessment of the incident."

What does this mean? The handball law is going to be hugely condensed for next season.

Image 1 is the current wording of the law, Image 2 the new wording.

There will be guidance, but effectively the decision has been put back at the referee's discretion.

IFAB boss David Elleray:

"We are trying to make sure that the accidental handball where the player's arm position is a consequence of, or justifiable by their body movement for that situation (apart from the attacking situation), that is not a handball offence."

Pierluigi Collina added this, again insisting that nothing is really changing despite rolling back the wording:

"We decided to go into this direction, offering the possibility to have less strict wording to before but the essence, believe me, it doesn't change."

Of course, the new wording increases subjectivity further. With the added problem that fans are now so used to certain kinds of handballs, so there will definitely be controversy next season.

What is handball? I'm still not sure we really know.