{"id":893373,"date":"2026-09-15T22:48:28","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T22:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/893373\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T22:48:28","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T22:48:28","slug":"howard-webb-says-accidental-handball-law-a-nonsense-and-calls-for-reform-laws-of-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/893373\/","title":{"rendered":"Howard Webb says accidental handball law \u2018a nonsense\u2019 and calls for reform | Laws of football"},"content":{"rendered":"

Howard Webb has described the law around accidental handball as \u201ca bit of a nonsense\u201d and called for its reform to stop referees being drawn into \u201cridiculous situations\u201d.<\/p>\n

The chief refereeing officer for English football made his remarks on Tuesday, when he also fronted up over the error that allowed Manchester City to win Sunday\u2019s Manchester derby. Webb said he was \u201creally disappointed\u201d with the video assistant referee call that failed to spot Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez interfering with play from an offside position before Erling Haaland scored the only goal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Match Officials Mic\u2019d Up, Webb reviewed a number of controversial incidents from the Premier League season. He said the buildup to an Ipswich own goal at Manchester United, where the ball hit Harry Maguire\u2019s hand before he took a shot that deflected off Jacob Greaves and into the net<\/a>, highlighted problems with the handball law.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a nonsense, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Webb said. \u201cIf [Maguire] strikes the ball beautifully into the top corner, then the goal gets disallowed. [But] he skews his shot, it becomes an own goal, and it\u2019s awarded.\u201d<\/p>\n

The handball law says it is an offence \u201cif a player scores in the opponent\u2019s goal directly from their hand\/arm [or] immediately after the ball has touched their hand\/arm, even if accidental\u201d. If another player touches the ball before it goes in, however, only a deliberate handball would lead to play being brought back. Webb said he believed this was the wrong approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law should change away from that idea,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re in this ridiculous situation whereby the goal is allowed to stand because it\u2019s an own goal. You also get officials having to work out: was the shot on target, was it not on target? The worst-case scenario for us is that the officials decide that the ball is going wide and it\u2019s an own goal, but then later on the goal is attributed to the player that scored, whose arm it hit. So, I think we ought to look at this and just allow the officials to determine whether it\u2019s a normal handball offence. Did he make himself bigger? Did he deliberately handle the ball? And I don\u2019t think [Maguire] does those things in this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Webb, who has promised greater transparency from Pro Ref, is increasingly expected to give a public verdict on controversial decisions and it was not a surprise to find Match Officials Mic\u2019d Up scheduled for TV 48 hours after the farrago in the Manchester derby.<\/p>\n

Erling Haaland celebrates after his goal in the derby was cleared to stand. Photograph: Catherine Ivill\/AMA\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The VAR Matt Donohue and his assistant Blake Antrobus were stood down from their duties on Monday, after Pro Ref acknowledged \u201can error of judgment\u201d in assessing City\u2019s winning goal. Donohue was called on to check the decision to disallow Haaland\u2019s 60th-minute strike for offside. Using semi-automated offside technology, Donohue was able to establish that the striker was onside and he overturned \u00adOliver\u2019s call. But he failed to spot Fern\u00e1ndez had influenced play from an offside position, an \u00adinfringement which Pro Ref said should have led him to recommend an on-field review.<\/p>\n

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Webb said it was \u201cimportant\u201d this error had been acknowledged. \u201cI was really disappointed with this outcome, we all are, none more so than the officials themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cThey take a lot of personal pride in what they do and they\u2019re obviously hurting now, having fallen short in this situation. They\u2019ll not be officiating again until after the international break.\u201d<\/p>\n

Webb said that Donohue had got \u201ctunnel vision\u201d while assessing the lead-up to the goal, concentrating on Haaland and not Fern\u00e1ndez, because the on-field decision was against Haaland. \u201cDonohue doesn\u2019t truly evaluate the full impact of Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s position,\u201d Webb said. \u201cHe has a look to see if he touches the ball, because then that relates to potentially knocking it to Haaland, who goes on to score. He doesn\u2019t touch the ball, but he doesn\u2019t truly evaluate other elements of offside. In that moment, he gets tunnel vision. He gets focused on Haaland, and it\u2019s down to the rest of his team to pull him out of that tunnel, and unfortunately, that didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Howard Webb has described the law around accidental handball as \u201ca bit of a nonsense\u201d and called for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":893374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-893373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}