We must put our hands up and say new rule is an issue

THIS has now gone beyond silly. This is madness in pursuit of impossible perfection. We understand that humans make mistakes. They create the controversies that keep supporters engaged. They are never more needed than now when the stadium gates are firmly shut. We should not be trying to squeeze out every tiny vestige of an error. Laws that should be designed for football’s smooth running are working against it. No wonder we are confused.

Match officials who detest the latest innovation are instructed to apply it strictly.

Failure to do so may mean removal from the next big appointment. The Premier League, against its natural instinct, has to comply. Then comes news that a certain latitude will be allowed. Oh dear. What if one referee’s tolerance differs from another’s? Demands for consistency will come fizzing back from the past.

The rest of the game looks on wondering what it all means for them. Rules made by FIFA based upon what they see in top-tier games are lumped on to the multitudes who would be grateful for a qualified assistant, never mind VAR.

The problem has crept up on us by small steps over a number of seasons. With hindsight the success of goal-line technology can be seen as having paved the way for VAR.

As a result, a player’s knee could be ruled offside but not his elbow. Though only with help of a digital line only seen by someone looking at a screen in some remote spot.

But now there is a new menace, with VAR no more than an absent accidental accomplice. If the ball so much as brushes an arm that is any distance from the body, it is a handling offence.

We want to believe that there are people at FIFA who think before they act, wise and experienced officials who are conscious that they are legislating for millions around the globe who play for their love of the game and without the burden of VAR.

Surely they are not naive individuals applying a rubber stamp before adjourning for an excellent lunch? But there are times when you do wonder. Before concluding that the new handball rule was too strict, they could have conducted this little experiment.

Go into the garden and put down a football, say, 10 yards from your body and get someone to kick it at you. How do you react? Are your arms rooted to your sides? Do you face the ball without flinching as it whistles towards you?

If this is in the area and you are honest, this will be handball and a penalty. Granted, the circumstances decreed a short preseason, but did no-one sit down and look at the new rule and consider what it would lead to? Did it really not occur to anyone to try that little experiment on the training ground? We can only assume that is what happened.

Those who sowed the wind were reaping the whirlwind. They don’t like it but it is their own fault and the whole game must suffer. In fairness, it must be said that the new rule has its supporters.

Graeme Souness, an intelligent observer with an independent turn of mind, claims that scoring goals is the objective. So what is wrong? The argument is fine as far as it goes, but we still want to see a fair contest between attack and defence.

If all you want is more goals, then acknowledge that modern man is larger that his predecessor so widen the goal posts by six inches and raise the crossbar.

The only trouble then is that you have just made every pitch in the world obsolete. It is all too late. “Scrap the Law” demanded a headline. OK, but that can’t be done before the end of the season.

We have played games like this and cannot now move the goal posts. We have to play under this rule for the remaining matches.