‘What a JOKE’
ROY HODGSON
Crystal Palace manager ‘I DO NOT understand how we have allowed this rule to come into operation. For me, it’s unacceptable and I’ve got to be honest with you, it’s certainly destroying my enjoyment of the game of football. I’m just disappointed that the result went against us as a result of a rule that we’ve now brought into football which is killing the game.’
JAMIE CARRAGHER
Sky Sports pundit ‘IT’S AN absolute disgrace. An absolute joke. Newcastle fans will be ecstatic, I can understand that. But everyone else in this country will say exactly what I am saying. Eric Dier jumps for the ball, has no control of where his arms are going, there is a header half a yard away from him, it hits him on the back of the arm, he has no idea what is going on. This is a joke. Whether it’s the Premier League, the FA, FIFA ... whoever’s involved in this — stop it, because you are ruining football for everybody. Absolute joke.’
GARY LINEKER
BT Sport and BBC presenter ‘LUDICROUS. Utterly ludicrous law exacerbated by VAR. Can we have our game back please?’
CLIVE TYDLESLEY
Commentator ‘WE HAVE let this happen. I’ve never known football so united about anything — but it’s our fault. We demanded consistency and that’s what we’ve got: consistent insanity. The handball law is there to stop outfield players catching the ball or punching it away deliberately. The lawmakers have tried to make things clearer by defining deliberate. You cannot define deliberate. Intent is the mind, it’s not in the body shape. These laws are not just for the Premier League — who’s going to protect the referee who gives one of these handball penalties in a Sunday league game in east London? Who’s going to tell the eight-year-old who costs their team a cup final that their body shape was unnatural?’
GREG RUTHERFORD
Olympic long jump gold medallist ‘AS SOMEONE who spent a lot of time jumping, I can confirm you use (arms) and need them to perform the action. They would NOT be by your side. VAR… go for a sleep, you’re very drunk.’
AFEW seasons ago Premier League referees were instructed to clamp down on shirt pulling. For a week or two, chaos reigned as penalties flowed like corner kicks.
Predictable uproar followed and the fuss was such that the officials were sufficiently spooked to stop giving them. The rule still exists but is — for better or worse — followed less rigorously.
It feels as though we are now at that point with handball. The rule and all its variations is so stupid as to have become baffling.
The referees — those on the field and in the VAR room — are following it and games are being ruined, results morphed. So there is nothing more to be done than make noise.
Roy Hodgson did so in his own way on Saturday. The Crystal Palace manager’s tone was measured but as his irritation simmered, his point was perfectly and intelligently made.
His defender Joel Ward was actively moving his hand away from the ball when contact against Everton was made, so how could it possibly be a penalty?
Hodgson spoke not just for himself and his players and his club but for all of us and this is the only way to prevent football’s slide accelerating towards farce. We have to make noise and hope that somebody listens.
Players don’t help themselves, of course. When the ball struck Ward’s hand at Selhurst Park, the Everton players appealed for a penalty, just as Newcastle’s players did when Spurs’ Eric Dier suffered similarly yesterday. We can put that down to competitive instinct and shouldn’t expect it to change.
Elsewhere, though, the message must be delivered that this is a rule that is not working and must change. It is hard to understand how exactly we have reached this position. As Hodgson said himself, there was nothing wrong with the old rule. A hand that moves the ball deliberately is penalised. One that does not is not.
But here we are regardless, trapped in a world where dissent is not routinely punished but players offside by a hair’s width are. A world where assistant referees are told not to flag for offside until a movement is complete — where a player is allowed to run through and score only to be told he had been wasting his time doing all that sprinting and shooting for which he is paid.
This is the modern way. The rules of the game are constantly tweaked, manipulated and altered and rarely for the better.
I was never keen on the introduction of VAR but the system is improving. It was certainly helpful at Brighton on Saturday.
Gradually, the technology is becoming less of a problem than the rules themselves. In the Black Country, Chelsea levelled late on at West Bromwich. The ball struck the arm of Kai Havertz and we are told play would have been stopped had he been the player to then cross to goalscorer Tammy Abraham. But the fact he played the ball back to a team- mate means the game went on. How can this be? How can handball be handball one moment and a legitimate piece of play the next? You could not make that up but somebody at the International Football Association Board actually has. IFAB are the body responsible for this mess and they meet in Zurich. So if you want to write, write to them. In the meantime, we hope other managers follow Hodgson’s lead, and that includes some of those who benefit from the breaks. Steve Bruce’s comments last night were admirable while Everton’s Carlo Ancelotti did not go quite so far. ‘I cannot agree with this kind of rule but you have to accept it first of all,’ said the Italian. And this is the point. We don’t have to accept it. We don’t have to accept it at all.