Is It Time To Change the "Hand Ball" Rule?

Very rarely does a game go by without at least one controversial handball incident. And no wonder, because what does handball actually mean?

There's no point looking at the official FIFA rules to find out. They’ll tell you exactly what the punishment for a handball is, depending on who, where, when, what, why, and how the incident occurs, but nowhere does it give an actual definition.

Luckily, as followers of the beautiful game, we all know the general definition. There's two factors to consider in a handball offence: 1) whether there is contact between the ball and anywhere on the player's arm, from his shoulder to his finger tips; and 2) what the position of the arm is at the moment of contact. 

The position of the arm is supposed to be used as an indicator for the referee and his assistants when deciding whether the handball was deliberate or not.

But in reality, this is nonsense. Anyone can distinguish between a deliberate handball and an accidental one.

Well, I say anyone can; most free kicks and penalties are given for handballs that are actually accidental.

It must be to do with the fact that every football follower and every referee on this planet takes a different view on any given handball incident. It doesn’t matter if the incident was genuinely ball-to-hand (rather than hand-to-ball) or if the player was genuinely protecting his face; people will always see it differently, because there are no universal rules on interpretation.

Therefore the handball rule is subjective. But how can it be fair for some games to be won and lost on someone’s personal opinion?

Why not just make it an offence for the ball to strike a player's arm in any circumstance? In other words, have a strict liability rule: any sort of handball results in a free-kick or penalty, depending on where the incident happened. 

(For those not sure of the term strict liability, it is a term used in Scottish Law (and probably others) that says the act in itself is a crime. Think parking tickets, driving through a red light, or speeding. You get no defense; there are no excuses. It's black and white. Either you're guilty or you're not.)

A strict liability rule would see all teams and players, at every level, playing the same game with the same rule.

No more depending on what “frame of mind” the man in the middle is in on that particular day.