The reason for this post is to learn more about some difficult penalty calls. What triggered me to do this post was the match between Barcelona and Alavés today. Towards the end of the match there was a handball by Umtiti inside the box . Some say it's a penalty because it very clearly hits his hand. Others say it isn't because the shot comes from point-blank and there's no way Umtiti could move away from it in time and that it is not voluntary.
http://www.marca.com/en/football/barcelona/2018/01/28/5a6e4517ca474177378b45be.html

I know there are hands inside the box that aren't penalties and others that are. I want to hear your opinions and reasoning on when a handball is a penalty and when it is not and what do the actual RULES say about this situations.

Also, please no fanboys and smartass comments. Thanks.

Very interesting question, I personally don't know for sure but will be quite interesting to see the answer of other people. I guess a situation like this is really up to the ref to judge but a really hard call no matter what. No doubt Sun would know the answer. :)

Tight, I think people would be more in favor of calling for a pen, it does not mean it's a definite pen.

1. The ball went toward the goal
2. The ball hit a player's arm and changed direction -> it's a pen.
3. If it's a deliberate stop and a high chance goal -> red card. If's accidental but clumsy, lower chance of end up in a goal, probably yellow.

Now, when it's too close and the player's hand is close to his body, it's not a pen. But how close?

The whole thing would be for the ref to judge, based on different factor, calling a pen can kill a game, so in a 50/50 most ref would not call it.

In case of Umtiti, it was very close, fast, his hand was quite close to his body, playing in home field and it's a peak of the moment, and it was to fast for the ref to see, he would assume it wasn't obvious, nor the hand was too far. SO he didn't call. But if we look at it on TV, I think it's a pen.

There're tons of similar situations which had been called for penalty AND tons of similar situations too which hadn't been called for peanlty.

At Nou Camp, dying minutes, very fast, and barca was leading with only 1 goal, what're you expecting?

IMO, if the's a very high chance of a goal, it should be a penalty (whether intentional or not) since if you takeaway that hand, the ball would be found at the back of the net. Just my opinion because I feel the hand should not be the one that denies a goal.

Tuan basically summed it up. The fact is that the only ways to avoid issues like this is:

1. FIFA/UEFA making a single uniting criteria to label handballs instead of leaving it up to refs interpretation of the play
2. VAR being implemented in every top competition so these incidents can be clearly reviewed in game to avoid having the controversy and regret. Alas, implementing VAR also requires the point above to be efficient and consistent. Different leagues have different opinions and different refs within a league have different opinions.

My personal criteria to calling an incident a pen or not depends on:

Did the player purposely block the ball with his hand?
Was his hand in an unnatural position? (above head, extended far out etc)
If hand and arm are glued to body then no pen.

Basically sums up to did the ball hit the hand or the hand hit the ball.

Was his hand in an unnatural position? (above head, extended far out etc)
If hand and arm are glued to body then no pen

this, I'd also add that, if the opponent is 1 meter away from you and shoot it straight at your arm, you basically can't do anything with it, while you're running.

If his arms were flying all over, then it's a pen.

Based on the picture only, this is not a handball. His arm is next to his body so now it becomes part of the body. The shot is just a couple feet away and hit with power, no way he could have moved his arm out of the way.

No PK in my book.

See, the how close and how far the arm to the body, how fast the situation is, where it happens already divided the choices.

I think saying the ref sucks now is a bit unfair (for this call) :D

Agree with kyo for the context and Tuan for the situation.
Involuntary hand balls are highly subjective and depend on situation : for me once the shot in on target or prevent a clear chance with the hand not close to the body, its PK. Voluntary or not.
For me it’s a clear one.

But the context is fierce : 1 goal lead, Home game, 88th minute, ref blamed for disallowing a Messi goal that only him didn’t saw at Mestalla. He didn’t got the balls to whistle the PK.

Barcelona got 32 penalties in their favor in the last 3 seasons, but didn't get a penalty against them in the last 74 games in La Liga, CL probably same story since I don't remember when they got a penalty or a red card against them, at least in an important game, I wouldn't be suprised if they forcefully let some weaker team shoot a penalty against them just so that the stats are not so obvious.

@Golazo care to share where you got those stats from?

@raimondo This seem like a good bet https://www.dreamteamfc.com/c/news-gossip/375654/barcelona-penalty-record-conspiracy/