Chelsea should not have been awarded a penalty in last month’s 3-1 win over Crystal Palace when Joao Pedro’s goal-bound shot was blocked by Jaydee Cambot’s arm.
The independent Key Match Incident Panel reviews every match and is made up of five people: three former players and coaches, and one each from the PGMO and Premier League.
In this case, they unanimously decided that the penalty award was incorrect.
Just before the hour mark at Selhurst Park, referee Darren England ruled that Pedro’s shot hit a Palace defender and was not a handball, allowing Chelsea to continue play. But then VAR official Matt Donoghue called for an on-field review for England, which lasted almost two minutes.
In the end, Darren England overturned the initial decision and awarded a penalty, which Enzo Fernandes converted to make it 3-0.
The KMI Panel has now concluded that the initial on-field decision of no penalty was correct and that VAR should not have intervened to recommend a penalty.
The KMI committee has now concluded that the original on-field call was correct and that VAR should not have intervened to recommend a penalty.
There were two reasons for this. First of all, Kambot’s body was not unnaturally large, and the position of his arms was not unnatural. Second, the committee found a small deflection from Cambot’s hips before the ball hit his arm, which provided further relief.
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Ref Watch discusses Crystal Palace defender Jaydee Cambot’s accidental handball that gave Chelsea a yellow card and a penalty.
A very similar incident occurred on Saturday when Brentford were awarded a penalty for handball by Jacob Murphy. Again, Murphy kept his arms close to his body to block Matthias Jensen’s shot on goal. Again, this wasn’t intentional on Murphy’s part, he just didn’t move his arm toward the ball. However, on-field referee Andy Madrid awarded a penalty and VAR saw no reason to intervene.
Were Murphy’s arms farther away from his body than Cambot’s, making him unnaturally large? Perhaps. And there was no bending to the arm. The Brentford vs. Newcastle incident may therefore have been “more” a penalty than the Chelsea vs. Palace incident.
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Jamie Carragher and Gary Cahill discuss Crystal Palace defender Jaydee Cambot’s accidental handball that gave Chelsea a yellow card and a penalty.
“Handball is problematic and it’s a subjective referee’s decision.”
The fact that we use expressions like “further penalties” gets to the heart of the matter. Handball is a problematic and subjective referee decision, with a sliding scale between what is interpreted as a penalty and what is not.
This is one of the most difficult things to interpret, for match officials and supporters alike. This is also because different sports have different interpretations of what is and is not handball.
In UEFA matches, referees have been told there is an “expectation” that a penalty should be awarded if the ball hits a defender’s arm. Match referees are given more discretion in the Premier League, allowing them to apply the usual parameters when considering handballs: whether the handball hit directly on the arm or whether there was a deflection. Are the defender’s arms in their natural position, or are they holding their arms away from their body and bulking up? Does the defender move his arm towards the ball?
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If Brentford had been given a penalty against Newcastle for this challenge on Keane Lewis-Potter.
At the start of this Premier League season, the PGMO told all supporters that it would take a “less is more” approach to handball, announcing that it would apply more lenient measures to unintentional handballs. That’s what the club and the fans wanted and that was the most important feeling.
Handball law has changed a lot since the first rules were created over 150 years ago. The rules of football, first recognized in 1863, allowed players to catch the ball as long as it was a “fair catch” and did not bounce, but at this stage in the game’s evolution the line between football and “rugby football” was blurred. By 1870, all handling of the ball was prohibited, but by 1871 he was the only player allowed to touch the ball with his hands as long as he was in his own half, until the specific position of goalkeeper was introduced a year later.
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Watch for free: Highlights of the Premier League match between Crystal Palace and Chelsea.
It was not until 1912 that the law was changed to restrict goalkeepers from handling the ball within their own “penalty area”.
Changes to the rules regarding handball may only be made once a year by the International Football Association Board. However, the interpretation of handball rules has been regularly adjusted to make it more palatable to clubs and fans. Inevitably, they became more complex.
The current IFAB Handball Law is explained in 263 words. The definition of “arm” is specified in the PL Handbook as “the upper end of the arm coincides with the lower end of the armpit.”
