Roy Hodgson nailed it for me with his after match comments following the defeat of his team against Everton yesterday…the new handball rule is wrecking our game.
And like him I am slowly falling out of love with football as a result of it, along with the scandal of VAR and referees giving penalties after the final whistle has blown as occurred yesterday when Neal Maupay gave Manchester United one despite having blown the final whistle at Brighton .
The game I and so many of us grew up with is gone and has not been done any favours by the unhealthy and often deeply disturbing spread of social media which frankly is now out of control.
At a personal level mine has become very limited as a result!
I wouldn’t normally quote managers from games in which we haven’t been involved but at 73 and having managed clubs and country Roy is a man who should be heard.
We as a club have suffered so much from given and ungiven handballs – along with VAR – that what he says needs to be heard by a universal football audience.
He is quoted at the BBC after Palace defender Joel Ward was adjudged to have handled Lucas Digne’s first-half knockdown, despite the ball striking his hand from close range and ref Kevin Friend gave the penalty after using his pitch-side monitor.
“It’s completely unacceptable. It’s destroying my enjoyment of the game of football,” he said.
“I can’t understand how everyone in the game – the Premier League, referees, managers and coaches – have allowed this rule to come into operation.
“I don’t want to profit from it or lose from it.”
“I predict what will happen is players will start flicking the ball onto a hand and screaming ‘handball’,” added the 73-year-old.
“I do not believe in the rule. People in football find it hard to accept. The referee doesn’t think it is handball either. He doesn’t want to give it but has to, because that’s what he is told to do.”
Players flicking the ball onto a defenders hand is nothing new. Suarez did all the time!
It would seem it now also depends on the length of the short sleeve . Where Does the shoulder end and the arm begin ? . Where does the arm end and the hand begin ? . Defending with your arms held rigidly by your side Denys the players full mobility . Back in The day before VAR and referee’s having to have decisions judged by faceless men a hand
( HAND BALL ) needed to be deliberate and obvious . Now it’s in the laps of a faceless few .
Yes , it is making football less enjoyable for everyone , players & fans alike .
I really hate the pitch side monitor, it’s just a way for the VAR team to imply that ref has made a mistake without having the balls to make the decision themselves.
I thought one positive of VAR would be that there would no longer be a bias in refereeing decisions in favour of the big teams but it just isn’t the reality – get rid!
I initially wanted VAR but its even worse than before.
Between VAR and a section of our pathetic anti west ham fans I’m about done with football.
The EPL are amateurs when it comes to VAR. Instead of learning from other sports they have chosen to start from zero and are making avoidable mistakes.
Football is not horse racing. The offside calls were never meant to be loser by a nose. The human eye can only see at 60Hz., why are we using technology with a higher resolution? Offside should be clear on real time reviews.
The handball rulings are ridiculous. While I applaud the desire to standardize the rulings, the current system not only fails, it chops the game up. Again, real time reviews for obvious errors.
Centralize the VAR with multiple reviewers making fast decisions based on real time video.
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Both Spurs and Palace lose points because of “ghost” handballs, yet Chelsea’s equalizer stands despite the ball striking Havertz’s hand in the build up. Where is the logic? My mind goes back to last season where we saw “goals” scored by Snodgrass at Sheffield and Antonio at Chelsea disallowed due to “handballs” that were the result of an opponent’s actions. This is not the game I grew up loving. Scrap VAR and let’s go back to the human errors of referees. I do believe that most fans and players would prefer this.