Handball law the problem, not VAR

VAR has united Scottish football fans in a way few things can, particularly in relation to handball decisions.

The World Cup break could allow our refs a chance to get extra training with it, but it’s not VAR that’s the problem; it’s the ludicrous handball law which needs ripped up.

It’s impossible to assess objectively.

I’ve been a runner for years and have seen every different style, from heel strikers, balls of the feet merchants and flat feet perambulators like PC Murdoch chasing Oor Wullie.

It’s the same with arms; some folk flap like flamingos taking off, some like hostages with arms firmly by their sides.

What’s all that got to do with football and VAR you may ask?

Well, no matter how many times the referee consults the replay monitor, the end result always comes down to: “In the referee’s opinion”.

That’s the key phrase and means refs must interpret a law which tries to squeeze the many biomechanical styles of players into a onesize-fits-all solution.

Officials are asked whether the player made his body unnaturally bigger?

But what is a natural style of running or jumping to one player will be completely alien to another.

Lawyers use the phrase “bad law” with good cause.

Football laws should be like the laws of the land, as clear and easy to interpret as possible, but the law on the current handball farrago is murkier than haar on the Tay.

It’s fogged in uncertainty and happed in mist.

Recently, Dundee United won a penalty at Parkhead (not a common occurrence and gratefully accepted on the basis that they don’t get many there and football fans are tribal so take what they can get), but if we want fairness and consistency, it was the sort of call which, against your team, would leave you apoplectic.

Steven Fletcher’s header hit Bernabei, who was clearly looking the other way as he jumped to head the ball, and it struck his arm behind him.

There appeared to be no intent at all to use an arm and it’s difficult to see how

any player can jump and gain height and leverage without the use of his arms.

It’s the handball law which is unnatural and not the style of players’ jumping, which seems to me to be in complete accord with the natural mechanics of the human body.

In every football action, the normal shape of the body is made unnaturally bigger, from stretching for a pass to making a tackle.

The law needs re-drafted to apply common sense.

We could make any handball in the box a penalty, which would be

ridiculously harsh, but would solve the issue.

Or more sensibly, we could be much more firm in making it a case of “clear and deliberate intent”.

Only a calculated and obvious attempt to deliberately move hand or arm towards the ball should be penalised.

I’ve never quite bought the notion of expecting complete consistency from referees because no two situations on-field are ever exactly the same.

But we do need as much uniformity as humanly possible.

The current handball law is a bad joke.

BAD CALL: Dundee United were awarded a controversial penalty at Parkhead.