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UEFA Are Ditching One Of Football's Most Ridiculous Rules At Euro 2020

UEFA Are Ditching One Of Football's Most Ridiculous Rules At Euro 2020
Gary Connaughton
By Gary Connaughton
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It's about time!

There are a number of rules in football that need some serious tinkering. VAR has brought whole new dynamic to the sport, with supporters now all but expecting every goal to be ruled out thanks to some small infringement.

It is very frustrating to watch, with imaginary lines and slow motion replays meaning every incident is now analysed to within an inch of its life.

The interpretation of the handball rule is one thing that has certainly caused plenty of controversy.

As things stand, if the ball touches the hand of an attacker (regardless of intent) in the buildup to a goal, then that goal is automatically ruled out.

The rules makes sense in some ways. There have incidents in the past where players have played the ball into the net with their hands, something that was allowed as the handball wasn't deemed to be 'intentional'. This eliminated that from the game.

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However, it also gave an inherent advantage to defenders. While they can get away with touching the ball with their hand if it was hit at them from close range, no such luxury was afforded to the attacking team.

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In an era where every goal is watched a huge number of times with slow motion replays, this has led to some rather ridiculous looking decisions to rule goals out.

Luckily, we won't have to worry about it this summer.

UEFA have confirmed today that accidental handballs by attackers in the build-up to a goal will not be penalised at Euro 2020.

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This rule change was approved by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) in March and is set to come into effect fully next season.

It seems UEFA will also be trying to avoid the farcical offside decisions we have seen so often in the Premier League over the last couple of seasons, with the chairman of UEFA's referees' committee Roberto Rosetti saying 'clear evidence' will be needed to disallow goals:

A few months ago Pep Guardiola said 'I can accept a mistake made by the referee on the field of play, I cannot accept a mistake made by the VAR in front of the video'.

This is true. He's right. We cannot disallow the goal for offside if we have no evidence it is offside.

We want clear evidence to disallow goals - that's it. For factual decisions we want interventions just if it's clear.

Hopefully players can now rest easy knowing their armpits won't cost their team the Euros this summer.

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