The unbearable arbitrariness of VAR handball rulings

The Premier League has quietly slipped into a state of refereeing schizophrenia where the same handball incident can be punished or ignored depending on the phase of the moon, or more accurately, which official is sat in the Stockley Park bunker watching a slowed-down clip of 12 frames per second.

The season's defining controversy arrived at the Emirates when Thomas Partey's arm made contact with the ball in the box against Manchester City, only for VAR to decide it was 'ball-to-hand'. No penalty. Yet the previous week, across town, an almost identical incident at Stamford Bridge saw a spot-kick awarded against the defender. The league's guidelines have become a Select Committee report nobody reads.

The Kieran Tierney ruling: a case study in chaos

Let me take you back to August 2023 when Kieran Tierney, then at Real Sociedad, was penalised for handball after the ball bounced up from two yards and struck his arm while he turned away. The explanation? His arm was in an 'unnatural position'. Except Tierney's arm was exactly where any running player's arm would be. The Premier League's own guidance says a handball is not an offence if the ball touches a player's arm directly from their own body — but only if the arm is in a 'normal' position. Normal for whom?

The deeper problem is football's refusal to accept that when a ball is kicked at close range, even the most statuesque defender cannot retract their arms faster than the ball travels. The laws demand superhuman reflexes. When Michael Oliver awarded a penalty against Joel Matip in 2022, the ball hit his arm at 50mph from three yards. By the time Matip's neural signal to lower his arm reached his bicep, the ball had already hit the net. VAR confirmed the penalty. This is now the standard.

The rulebook is a fiction: here's the evidence

The contradictions are not anomalies; they are systemic. Consider these three examples from the last 12 months:

  • Mateo Kovacic's arm brushed the ball at 20mph in a natural running motion — no penalty, 'ball-to-hand'
  • Virgil van Dijk's arm touched the ball after it deflected off his thigh from a yard — penalty given for 'unnatural position'
  • Bukayo Saka's arm was above his shoulder as he slid — no penalty because 'arm used for support'

Each decision had a different explanation. The common thread is that VAR is not correcting clear errors; it is inventing a parallel reality where the same physical incident can be interpreted two ways depending on the colour of the shirt or the phase of the moon. This is not refereeing. It is improvisation under the guise of technology.

The 'ball-to-hand' myth: why the defence is flimsy

The most common defence of the current system is that VAR allows referees to apply 'common sense'. But common sense without consistent rules is just intuition dressed up as wisdom. The Premier League's own data shows that since 2019, the rate of handball penalties awarded has increased by 300 per cent, yet the number of 'clear and obvious errors' corrected by VAR in handball incidents has actually dropped. More decisions, more mistakes, less clarity.

The argument that we must protect the game from 'artificial' rules ignores the reality that every offside law is artificial. The offside rule was invented to prevent goal-hanging. The handball rule was invented to prevent deliberate handling. The current interpretation punishes players for having arms in a sport where arms are biologically necessary for balance. The game has fallen into a legalism trap where the letter of the law kills the spirit.

My prediction: the Premier League will be forced to rewrite the handball rule within two seasons

The Premier League will scrap the current 'unnatural position' guidance within two seasons after a major Club meeting in 2025. The turning point will be a Champions League final or a World Cup knockout match decided by a VAR-awarded handball penalty where the ball struck the player's arm from a ricochet at close range. The public outcry will be so loud that the IFAB will be forced to adopt a simple standard: handball only if the arm was deliberately moved towards the ball, or if the arm made the body 'unnaturally larger' as judged by the silhouette of a player in a natural running posture. The current mess is not a bug; it is a feature of a regulatory structure that privileges process over justice. Expect the rewrite before the 2026-27 season.

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