Quote:

Holding in football is holding. Now a ref may miss it....but holding is holding. How many times are handballs seen....and waved off? How about offsides? When in the discretion of the referee.....he asks himself if the offsides player influenced play. Subjectivity that doesn't exist in football. If you line up offsides you get penalized....whether you influenced the play or not is irrelevant.



Big Daddy, I think I know better and this comment is not specifically related to you, however, I've quoted it as it is this ignorance to the actual rules and the correct application thereof that produces most of the issues during a soccer match.

A waved off handling is the result of the referee's determination that it was ball to hand. Many factors have to go into that decision. Now, a handling situation whether it's waved off or not, is very location and team specific. The closer to the goal it occurs the more it becomes an issue. If the handling is penalized, half of the stands are yelling ball to hand, and if it's not penalized, half of the stands are yelling for it to be penalized.

As for the off sides statement, the determination that the player in the off sides position influenced the play is a clear part of the laws, necessary to penalize the team for off side. Again, in that situation half of the fans are yelling for it, and half of the fans are yelling for it not to be.

The simple fact is, half of the fans at a soccer match are going to be yelling, and often times, these fans are demonstrating their ignorance to the laws and the correct application of them. Soccer fans for some reason feel it is their right to yell at the referees. Football and basketball fans tend to look at the idiot yelling with disdain. Soccer fans tend not only to tolerate it, but join in.