Ex-ref details penalty box rule changes that will impact Newcastle United & co this season

Newcastle United’s Premier League season gets underway on Saturday 17 August when they host Southampton at St James’ Park. The EFL, however, start a week prior to the top-flight with Sheffield United’s clash against Preston North End, Barnsley’s game against Mansfield Town and Swindon’s trip to Chesterfield all kicking-off this Friday to get a new domestic season underway.

Ahead of the EFL and Premier League’s commencement, Friend has revealed what changes referees will make to incidents in the penalty area involving handball and pushing from set-pieces.

Handball changes

Friend said: “Regarding handball there’s only a slight change and tweak into where we are going with that. I think one of the areas in that is with the change of trajectory [of the ball].

“So if a player takes a shot or a cross and it hits a player’s foot and it changes trajectory or changes direction and it hits the arm that might be out unnaturally, we aren’t looking to penalise that as a penalty kick. We saw some soft penalties last season for handball so if it is a clear directional movement from the ball onto the hand, then we are not going to be penalising that.

“We will be looking for examples where it clearly hits the arm unjustifiably with the arms away from the body, above the head to deliberately block a ball coming into the box or heading towards the goal.”

Newcastle United fell foul of these rules infamously in the Parc des Princes during their Champions League group stage game against PSG. A cross deflected off Tino Livramento and flicked his hand with the referee inexplicably overturning his initial decision to wave away the protests and give the hosts a penalty - one that would ultimately see the Magpies eliminated.

Pushing in the area

Friend said: “One of the things we love about English football, the Championship, League One and League Two is the physicality. We love the physical element of the game and we don’t want to take that out.

“We do understand that teams block before the ball is coming in and there are elements of holding. We understand that there is mutual holding between two sets of players and we aren’t going to intervene on that. What we are looking at is the clear holding offences that impact the ability of the attacker to get onto the ball or the clear impact on the ability of the attacker to do something with the ball.

“If a defender’s actions are to bring the player down by holding him or sustained impact, then we are going to penalise that whether on the ball or off the ball. The more away from the ball, the more severe it is going to be.

“We saw a couple of examples last season of defending players rugby tackling players fifteen yards away from the ball and actions like that, that are non-football and extreme, are going to be penalised this season. It’s a different feel for the referee but we’re empowering the refereeing team to understand a team’s tactics, what players are doing while they are setting up and identifying these little areas we need to pinpoint.”