- May 18, 2006
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Qualifying my statement, I we've had managers, players, fans and pundits all complaining loud and wide about handball this week, that hasn't happened beforeIt hasn't changed from natural position to making the body shape bigger, the laws haven't changed since they were brought in. Maybe the way it was explained by the media has, but as we didn't adopt last year, so it wasn't noticed over here, but the law and guidelines in respect of "naturally bigger" are the same as when introduced and adopted by rest of the world, with the one exception last year the laws said it was usually an offence, this year they say it is an offence.
It is both the same for attacker and defender (however the problem is if it is the defender and in box it is a penalty, whereas for attacker would just be penalised with direct free-kick, and the attacker has a further law against him that the defender doesn't, not being able to score a goal even if for a handball offence the defender would not be penalised for.
And to say nobody complained about handball for 100 years is just plain wrong, as was so open to interpretation and inconsistency (football is not just Premier League, but a global sport) and what has led to them trying to make it more black and white, but in my view going way too far with it.