Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to apply the current handball Law, including the deliberate/accidental distinction and the specific automatic-offence criteria.

Lesson Explanation

This lesson gives the handball offence, briefly introduced in Part 2, Lesson 1, the dedicated depth its genuinely detailed and frequently revised wording deserves.

The core principle: it is an offence if a player deliberately touches the ball with their hand or arm, including deliberately touching the ball with a thrown object. Deliberateness includes considering the movement of the hand/arm toward the ball, the distance of the ball, and whether the player’s position required that hand/arm position for a genuine footballing reason (like balance).

A genuinely important category exists regardless of deliberateness — the ball touching a hand/arm is STILL an offence, even if accidental, when a player: scores in the opponent’s goal directly from their hand/arm (even accidentally); scores in the opponent’s goal immediately after the ball has touched their hand/arm, even if accidental; gains possession/control of the ball after it touches their hand/arm and then scores or creates a goalscoring opportunity; or makes their body unnaturally bigger with their hand/arm in a way that blocks the ball.

There is genuinely NO offence if: the ball touches a player’s hand/arm directly from their own head, body, or foot, or from a nearby player’s head, body, or foot; the hand/arm is close to the body and does not make the body unnaturally bigger; or a player falling uses their hand/arm between their body and the ground for support (not extended to make the body bigger).

A genuinely important connection to Part 2, Lesson 5’s DOGSO material: because handball has its own specific deliberateness rules, an accidental handball that denies a goalscoring opportunity is judged first as a handball offence (was it an offence at all, under the rules above?), and only if it is an offence does the DOGSO sanction escalation apply — meaning a truly accidental touch that falls entirely outside the “still an offence” list above is not penalized at all, regardless of its impact on a goalscoring chance.

Practice Questions