WHAT A HAND BALLS UP
THE hated handball rule is here for the rest of the season — and maybe longer!
Football has been hit by penalties galore as the slightest touch on the arm has seen referees pointing to the spot.
Bosses like Steve Bruce and Roy Hodgson have led the calls for the new law to be changed before it totally kills the game.
But it looks as though we are in for a long wait for any changes to be made. That’s because the sport’s world governing body FIFA insisted that we change our rules to fall in with the rest of the game.
Before, refs were more lenient when it came to blowing for handball.
Now it’s a foul even if the defender is looking the other way and the ball is blasted at their arm.
That’s what happened to Eric Dier as Newcastle got a last-gasp penno to earn a draw against Spurs.
Because it’s a FIFA rule the international lawmaker IFAB has to make the change rather than the FA or Premier League.
They don’t meet very often and would be unlikely to bring about such a major change during a season.
It means next summer at the earliest for these crazy handballs to change.
Premier League shareholders meet this week and are expected to make their feelings clear.
But the problem is that IFAB don’t have another meeting until next March and any changes made there don’t come into force until next June.
So it seems that bosses like Bruce will have to put up with the madness — unless British refs just start to turn a blind eye which seems unlikely.
The Toon boss said: “The handball has been around for 100 years.
“If it is deliberate, no problem, but it has to be clear and obvious. We have lost the plot with it and it loses the spectacle of it.”