Howard Webb has described the law around accidental handball as “a bit of a nonsense” and called for its reform to stop referees being drawn into “ridiculous situations”.
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’s Manchester derby. Webb said he was “really disappointed” with the video assistant referee call that failed to spot Enzo Fernández interfering with play from an offside position before Erling Haaland scored the only goal.
Speaking on Match Officials Mic’d 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’s hand before he took a shot that deflected off Jacob Greaves and into the net, highlighted problems with the handball law.
“It’s a bit of a nonsense, isn’t it?” Webb said. “If [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’s awarded.”
The handball law says it is an offence “if a player scores in the opponent’s goal directly from their hand/arm [or] immediately after the ball has touched their hand/arm, even if accidental”. 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.
“The law should change away from that idea,” he said. “We’re in this ridiculous situation whereby the goal is allowed to stand because it’s 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’s 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’s a normal handball offence. Did he make himself bigger? Did he deliberately handle the ball? And I don’t think [Maguire] does those things in this situation.”
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’d Up scheduled for TV 48 hours after the farrago in the Manchester derby.
The VAR Matt Donohue and his assistant Blake Antrobus were stood down from their duties on Monday, after Pro Ref acknowledged “an error of judgment” in assessing City’s winning goal. Donohue was called on to check the decision to disallow Haaland’s 60th-minute strike for offside. Using semi-automated offside technology, Donohue was able to establish that the striker was onside and he overturned Oliver’s call. But he failed to spot Fernández had influenced play from an offside position, an infringement which Pro Ref said should have led him to recommend an on-field review.
after newsletter promotion
Webb said it was “important” this error had been acknowledged. “I was really disappointed with this outcome, we all are, none more so than the officials themselves,” he said. “They take a lot of personal pride in what they do and they’re obviously hurting now, having fallen short in this situation. They’ll not be officiating again until after the international break.”
Webb said that Donohue had got “tunnel vision” while assessing the lead-up to the goal, concentrating on Haaland and not Fernández, because the on-field decision was against Haaland. “Donohue doesn’t truly evaluate the full impact of Fernández’s position,” Webb said. “He 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’t touch the ball, but he doesn’t truly evaluate other elements of offside. In that moment, he gets tunnel vision. He gets focused on Haaland, and it’s down to the rest of his team to pull him out of that tunnel, and unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”