\n<\/p>\n
There seems to be no greater confusion than the handball law.<\/p>\n
It has changed so many times in recent years that it has been pretty much impossible to keep up.<\/p>\n
“I just hate the handball rule,” Alan Shearer told BBC Sport. “They have messed it up. <\/p>\n
“They’ll say that things are better in the Premier League than they are abroad, but that doesn’t wash with me. <\/p>\n
“It is so messed up in every single way, there is ‘deliberate’, ‘proximity’, ‘natural’, ‘unnatural’ – there are so many different ways they have to interpret things and it isn’t fit for purpose.”<\/p>\n
Shearer did not even mention the contradictory accidental attacking handball law which automatically disallows a goal. <\/p>\n
It created an offence for a striker which a defender would get away with. <\/p>\n
The law’s application might not feel like it is better in the Premier League but – in terms of penalties awarded – it demonstrably is, with fewer penalties awarded on average than in any of the other major European leagues.<\/p>\n
But that does not mean it is good.<\/p>\n
There is a misconception that the handball law was changed for VAR, but it happened the other way around.<\/p>\n
The International Football Association Board (Ifab) started work on redefining handball in 2014 – two years before trials of VAR began. <\/p>\n
Those changes created a menu of justifications for handball. <\/p>\n
When the video assistant came into the game, it was too easy to give penalties. It just required finding one clause to tick off – and there was a huge spike in spot-kicks across leagues.<\/p>\n
VAR proved to be incompatible with the new law. It has been changed many, many times in recent seasons to try to find a solution. <\/p>\n
Fans would love to go back to the days when handball really was a basic judgement call.<\/p>\n
But the genie is out of the bottle.<\/p>\n
Any change would have to be defined. And with that new definition to contend with, we would probably be no better off.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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