{"id":617215,"date":"2026-09-07T13:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T13:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/617215\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T13:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T13:18:09","slug":"neco-williams-handball-new-video-shows-ball-hitting-arms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/617215\/","title":{"rendered":"Neco Williams handball: New video shows ball hitting arms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Much of the commentary on the incident has centred around the VAR not having evidence of a clear and obvious error as a reason to disallow the goal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Glasner mentioned it and Williams posted on X to that effect too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But clear and obvious errors only cover subjective incidents &#8211; those that require the referee to go to the pitchside monitor to review an incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Factual interventions, such as handball before a goal, are evidence-based judgements made by the VAR.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If the VAR feels they have the proof of an offence, they will disallow the goal. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For all Forest&#8217;s disquiet, there are plenty of people who believe you can see the handball, and Bankes was clearly one of those.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It shows one of the issues with VAR that can never be solved &#8211; even the factual interventions like this are, in truth, subjective. It is one person&#8217;s judgement that others can disagree with.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A case in point is Benjamin Sesko&#8217;s goal for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-united\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester United<\/a> against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/liverpool\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Liverpool<\/a> last season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The ball looked as if it might have brushed the fingertips of the Slovenia striker before going into the goal, but the VAR Stuart Attwell felt he could not be certain and allowed the goal to stand. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Referees&#8217; chief Howard Webb later said the ball &#8220;probably does hit the hand&#8221; but &#8220;the VARs need to see that conclusively&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Attwell did not feel he had proof, but Bankes did.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">During pre-season media briefings, Webb said attacking handball was one law he would change &#8211; which would mean goals like Williams&#8217; would not be ruled out based upon the original evidence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The problem is the law forces VARs on every goal to look at what body part the ball went in off,&#8221; Webb said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;If you were only to penalise when the attacker deliberately handles the ball or makes himself unjustifiably big &#8211; and not have that forensic examination &#8211; you could &#8216;check complete&#8217; it more quickly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It is a law I would definitely look to change. So Pro Ref and the Premier League are going to try and lobby for that to be changed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">VAR is being operated with a lighter touch this season. So far there have been just two subjective interventions at 0.06 per game, compared to 0.15 last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However the generally negative narrative around VAR and the tribal nature of football mean its involvement in key incidents attracts widespread attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Much of the commentary on the incident has centred around the VAR not having evidence of a clear&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-617215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}