“When the player touches the ball with his hand or arm, he unnaturally positions himself and makes his body take up more space. A player will be considered to have made his body takes up more space in an unnatural way when the position of his hand or arm does not is a consequence of the movement of his body in that particular action or cannot be justified by said movement. By placing his hand or arm in such a position, the player risks the ball hitting that part of his body, and this is an offence.”Do you understand a thing from this specific extract? We neither.’Alexa, explain the handball rule’ pic.twitter.com/hN8QPPGlMF— Football España (@footballespana_) March 7, 2022 And it’s the latest explanation and norm, word by word, of the handball rule that causes nothing but chaos across the world. So, when was this whole charade propelled in the first place?It’s hard to tell, but in hindsight, it’s blatantly clear the beautiful game of football has slowly turned into a bloody Frankenstein comprised of body anatomy mixed with anthropology and those irritating law paragraph, articles and interpretations. And to make this confusing cocktail even more bitter – we should add a pinch of VAR, the entity for itself, that not only didn’t bring the necessary justice but poured in tons of new accusations and allegations of potential match-fixing.Is it the handball rule, or the incompetent VAR officials?There’s no consistency. How that Richarlison goal can get disallowed for handball but it’s not handball for Rodri on Saturday makes no sense. #VAR pic.twitter.com/cPhSG08cG0— The-Toffees (@thetoffees_com) March 3, 2022 And the biggest loser is – Football. That simple, lovely, more than a century-old game has spread all across the globe thanks to its charming simplicity and honesty. Take off two shirts, and there are your posts; one ball is all you need (and it can be made even of your socks), and you’ll be equipped like every other player out there. It’s a goal when the ball crosses the goal-line following your shot or header. Except for the keeper, no one is allowed to touch the ball with his hands. He who scores the more is the winner.There you go. Is it that complicated? Honesty and simplicity, as we mentioned earlier, were the fuels that kept this game going and growing, becoming more popular than any other on the planet Earth.##EDITORS_CHOICE##And then, one day, as we know, someone committed that unforgivable crime, neglecting the good old saying that the path to hell is paved with good intentions.That rule about touching the ball with a hand – especially in the penalty area – had been put under severe scrutiny. And all of a sudden, we started using our cigarette breaks in the office to debate whether that was – brace yourself – natural or unnatural arm position!? What’s natural, and who are we to decide? For some of us, it’s completely natural to enjoy, let’s say, two-day Netflix binging. For others, it’s a total idiocracy.Understanding the handball rule is tougher than studying Calculus, Statistics, and Algebra combined…— Sicario (@eanqah) March 6, 2022 Jokes and exaggeration aside, we should have denied that first attempt to allow some interpretations of the handball rule irrespective of that essential. We shouldn’t have given a damn if it’s a wrist, palm, arm, hand, biceps or triceps. Moreover, we should have burned those awful maps of the human body and its parts (and the hand itself) that are allowed to touch the ball in football. Like, what were you thinking about? Looking at them reminds us more of some exam in the medical school rather than Diego and his ‘Hand of God’ or any other football-attached subject. They must have been created by those ultimate geeks that were never considered eligible for the high-school 5-a-side team and our now plotting an act of meticulous revenge on the whole sport.aussie rule shirts, anything below the acromion is handball, I’m pretty sure that will stop the crap interpretation of handball, var was brought in to stop clear and obvious mistakes not to rewrite rules that have been in existence for over a century pic.twitter.com/aWMaFWQAmd— coffeeblackguard_☠️☠️☠️01 (@coffeeblackgua1) February 28, 2022 And to tell you frankly – they’re doing great. Now, when your favourite team demands a penalty due to a handball in the stoppage time of the crucial tie, there’s a whole set of scientific knowledge you need to fulfill in order to understand the ref’s final decision – which part of his arm did the ball hit, was it intentionally or not, was it a natural behaviour or not, did his body reacted the way most of the humans would, for how long has the contact lasted, etc.Handball or no handball? It does striker the arm and he does make his body bigger. VAR not used in this situation when it should have been. Milan may have been robbed. Don’t attack please lol, I think this is poorly missed. pic.twitter.com/jKwzmfXJcX— Jerry Mancini (@jmancini8) February 25, 2022 A piece of cake, init? All you need to have is a basic bachelor’s degree in medicine, maybe some diploma in anthropology and a great memory to recollect all the rules. And a virtue that is increasingly rising on the list of the desirable ones – never believe your own eyes! If your TV shows you an apparent handball in the box, bear in mind the fact most of the media are services of propaganda that deceive you all the time. Don’t trust them, only those officials (in pink and lime kits mostly) and their bosses, former referees that are setting new rules, articles and paragraphs as we speak.Under the new #Handball rules, it’s a penalty if ‘The player falls and the hand/arm is extended laterally or vertically away from the body’ – which is what people do when they fall, otherwise when they land they injure themselves. The only way to avoid this is… pic.twitter.com/cgzwOUu9BZ— Jonathan Brown (@berty2001) September 28, 2020 Anyway, there’s a tiny flare of hope in the air. The referees in Spain have made it clear that they are fed up with the complicated and chaotic world of new handball rules. According to Marca, “any norm except the one that can be measured admits interpretations, but what has been happening in recent years around what is and is not a handball is discomforting everyone, referees included. They are the ones that suffer thanks to that also”.LIVERPOOL – INTER That’s why their intention is to scrap all the confusing and unnecessary rules, so we would have our beautiful and simple game back.It’s the last chance of salvation, and we should all align with the Spanish arbitros.By: Bojan Babic
