A FURTHER

point about the foolishness of football’s new rule interpretations, arising from West Ham’s disallowed goal at Sheffield United last week. As you may recall, Declan Rice was judged to have handled the ball, unavoidably and accidentally, in the build-up to Robert Snodgrass scoring. He was five yards outside Sheffield United’s penalty area at the time. Yet suppose the offence had been committed inside West Ham’s penalty area? It could happen. Son Heung-min ran the length of the field to score for Tottenham this season. Equally, Rice could have won the ball in a melee and taken it 10 or 20 yards upfield in a counter-attack before striking a long pass for Snodgrass to run on and score. What would unfold then? VAR replays the move and notes that Rice handled and by the new rules instructs the goal to be disallowed. Yet where did the offence take place? Inside West Ham’s penalty area. So, it’s a penalty to Sheffield United? No, because it was an accident and unavoidable. But the goal’s been disallowed for handball? Yes. And that took place in the penalty area? Yes. So it must be a penalty? No. Right, so now it’s not a goal, but also not a penalty. How do we restart? There seems to be no provision in the rulebook for this eventuality but, clearly, it is possible. Plenty of counter-attacking goals start from breaks inside the penalty area. This is why it is ridiculous to have one handball rule for attackers, another for defenders. The game is being made unnecessarily complicated and not even comprehensible.