Penalties for unintentional hands: all presumed guilty!

Last weekend, February 12 and 13, we could also mention the two penalties conceded by Atlético de Madrid against Getafe (4-3) and that obtained by Roma against Sassuolo (2-2), on faults equally involuntary hands. Don’t throw any more! Even if “objective situations” generated some of these penalties (increase in the body surface of the offending players) and that in Madrid (Atlético) and Sassuolo, the referees took action without the video, we had the furious impression to have lived again more distant crazy sequences punctuated by the same supreme sanctions repeated for unintentional hand faults.

Generalized severity

On March 6, 2019, the disastrous PSG-Manchester United (1-3) in the Champions League marked by Rashford’s elimination penalty for involuntary hand fault by Kimpembe had been the prelude to what Jérôme Latta in The world had qualified “epidemic of VAR-penalties“. Throughout Europe, in fact, the video had drastically punished involuntary hands in the surfaces, confirming the fears of a formidable jurisprudence inaugurated with brilliance during France-Croatia (4-2) of 2018.

For the first time in a World Cup final, the “POSSIBLE PENALTY REVIEW” overlay appeared at the bottom of our TV screens in the 33rd minute of play. VAR verdict: penalty for France following an unintentional handball error from Perisic on a corner from Griezmann! Grizou had then transformed his penalty kick (2-1) but leaving the bizarre feeling that this match at the top had just been decided on a new type of arbitration sanction (referee + video).

It was feared that such severity would become widespread. And that’s what happened, as Jérôme Latta pointed out in March 2019: “The introduction of video refereeing tends to systematically penalize hands in the box with a penalty. We thus ‘fall from the sky’ decisions that can change a match, cause misunderstanding and disputes as the ‘justice’ expected from the VAR is expeditious here.”

Clarifications around the rules… and confusions

After a new sequence of confusion born of an amendment variously interpreted to the point of generating a sort of random lottery instituted by the VAR (no penalty “if the ball has bounced from another part of his body or that of a nearby teammate or opponent“), the IFAB reacted vigorously again in March 2021. To the renewed interpretative principle (“any contact of a player’s hand or arm with the ball does not constitute a foul“) was added the firm recommendation to the referees to “use their judgment” rather than systematically whistling.

On this occasion, we had witnessed yet another drift, collateral, that of the “double penalty” which develops in a random and worrying way with the yellow card attributed to poor Pierrick! During Chelsea-Palmeiras, Luan Garcia (Palmeiras) had taken a yellow in addition to the penalty caused for his involuntary hand, while Thiago Silva, just as guilty of a hand fault, had himself been exempted from card…

The rule has taken over the mind

With its share of almost systematic penalties for the fault of involuntary hands, the current trend raises fears of the end of a certain arbitration tolerance and the quasi-official advent of an iron rule: the presumption of guilt of players. However, in criminal law, the intentional element is essential for the taking into account of an offense or a crime and football accommodated with a greater or lesser latitude this principle which guaranteed to the players a presumption of minimal innocence…

It would seem that this is no longer the case and that this is leading to a real paradigm shift where now the letter of the rules almost systematically prevails over the spirit of the game. With in addition the almost systematic intervention of video (a a priori, or a posteriori when it confirms the referee’s decision), it is now the image that rules: as soon as there is manual contact, it’s a penalty! Gold, “the intention of the player does not appear on the images, and their dissecting from all angles, in slow motion, far from revealing the ‘truth’ of the gesture, tends to derealize it“, precisely analyzed Jérôme Latta in The world.

This trend towards all-technology is becoming widespread, resulting in the growing submission to video of referees who wish not to make mistakes and who thus dispossess themselves of their “free will”. In April 2019, Michel Platini, notorious opponent of the video, had split a lapidary comment on the ravages of an arbitration subservient to the VAR: “Theumpires have only one objective: to protect themselves. I simply repeat that football belongs to the footballers and not to the referees. The referee is an essential cog in football but he is not its architect.”

“Defend the spirit of the game! Defend our football“, had concluded our national Michel. We do not really take the direction … Because, now, the significant recurrence of these penalties incriminating players who commit unintentional faults draws an increasingly visible zero tolerance! he spirit of the game, there is for example the famous virtual “orange card” which warns a player already warned, and who has just committed a new fault, that we pass the towel but that during the next one, it will be the expulsion.

What impact on the game… and on the children?

A tolerance there too rather well accepted by the players. A bit like in motorway traffic, we have instituted the offense of very high speed which verbalizes more severely than light speeding. In the name of the spirit of the game, we had thus thought of reintroducing the indirect free kick in the penalty area for real but benign faults, such as these involuntary hands… Alas! It will be a penalty, full stop! With harmful consequences. Such is the rhythm of matches, sometimes altered for good with VAR reminders which force the referee to go and see an action which he had deemed not at fault.

These retro-effect penalties, in addition to damaging the morale of those who suffer them (one suddenly becomes at fault even when defending well), also disturb the coaches (like Christophe Galtier in Lyon?) who suddenly see all their tactical departure plans upset, sometimes very early for an involuntary peno… With the defeat penalty suffered by Palmeiras in the 117th minute, while Luan Garcia’s arm seems stuck to the body, we relived the same ambivalent feelings of acceptance of the rule but also of discomfort that we felt at the time of certain golden goals which acted too brutal endgames…

The systematic evolution of these penalties also amplifies these grotesque situations of one-armed defenders, arms behind their backs and therefore unbalanced to defend, who will soon be asked to be “decapitated” by deflecting the ball with their head rather than turning from three-quarters as they have always done (like Kimpembe against MU)! From now on, shooting from a distance or centering in the box will with a little luck cause a “penalty-reward”, according to Thomas Tuchel’s very true formula after this PSG-MU in March 2019. And if the current trend for median blocks rather than to the low blocks was, among other reasons, guided by the fear of making fatal hand faults?

But the saddest, finally, are the players who claim a peno for hand and sometimes stop playing by putting pressure on the referees to obtain “reparation”. This whining which is becoming systematized demeans the players, debases them. A fine example for the kids who, too, by mimicry, will in turn become little coffee-goers! The principle of indulgence for these involuntary hands taught children a certain tolerance, a real education in the spirit of the game. It taught them that the rule can have exceptions: any contact of the hand or the arm of a player with the ball is not a foul.