I didn’t know this. What’s the rule?
VAR and Refereeing 2025/26 | General Discussion
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
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It’s not one collision in isolation. It’s one more call in a pattern.
The Nuno Mendes second yellow/red changes the game. Then compare the penalty given in Paris with the one not given on João Neves and the standard looks completely incoherent.
In a tie decided by tiny margins, the referee doesn’t need to be cartoonishly corrupt to change the outcome. A few bad calls, unevenly applied, are enough.
Criticising this referee for a dodgy call by a different referee is another very strange take.
Re tonight. Look up the rules. Neves incident is not a penalty. It’s there in black and white. It even makes intuitive sense. Handball should be deliberate to be penalised. Why would Neves deliberately block a clearance from a team mate?
Whether the contact benefited PSG is relevant evidence, but it is not the legal test. A player can deliberately commit an action that is stupid and disadvantages his team.
I agree that he was turning away from the ball though.
Bless the yanks and their terrible football takes. He was booked for handball. After flinging himself to the ground and grabbing the ball. Defenders have a right to stand their ground. They can’t vanish when an opposing player runs straight into them.
Are you related to the ref? Jeez your scouring the forum for any thread to defend the ref even where there isn't a defense. It's pretty clear the defender came into the path of Diaz and it should have been a free kick to Bayern.
Strange call, when you consider the amount of times they let play go on for offsides to let the olay develop.
“Different referee” is a cute dodge. I’m talking about the standard across the tie, not claiming the same bloke reffed both legs in disguise.
You’re also reducing the argument to one collision because that’s easier to swat away. That was never the point. The point is the broader mess: Mendes’ second yellow/red not given which you’ve conveniently ignored altogether; the penalty standard shifting from one leg to the next; the Neves handball being waved away with a very generous reading, the Diaz obstruction and subsequent yellow.
And on Neves, “deliberate” is a lazy oversimplification. Modern handball isn’t just did he mean it? Intent stopped being the whole test a long time ago. Just keep up please.
In a tie decided by small details, inconsistent officiating is enough to matter. One bad call is football. A string of inconsistent calls across a tie is a refereeing problem. Pretending that disappears because you found one sentence in the rulebook is exactly the kind of smugness that makes these conversations unbearable.
Laimer had a hand ball just before. Was a free kick to PSG, not against.
Which is the ref mistake that cost Bayern 62+ minutes of numerical advantage. Laimer never handles the ball in that situation.
The replay shows Laimer brings the ball down with his chest and then plays Olise through on the right flank only for Mendes to stop the attack with his arm.
Clear yellow card for Mendes, second yellow, therefore red card after 28 mins.
Except he doesn't and the ref blows only after the Mendes handball. If you look at the ref, his body language suggests nothing would be given before the Mendes hand ball and there's no way he could even see Laimer, who chests it.
Looks like match fixing to me ? What other explanation is there for the ref behaving like that ?
This has been a week with some of the most baffling decisions in football history.
I don't think every handball has to be a yellow card.
The yellow cards for handball should be reserved for blatantly deliberate where the player has moved their arm to the ball to stop an attack.
Having your arm away from your body in the middle of the pitch and someone hits the ball against it is not a yellow card. Would have been ridiculous if an innocuous incident like that resulted in a red.
Mendes keeps hos arm stretched though. Clear handball to me
That would make it a free kick.
It's perfectly possible to give a free kick without a yellow.
It's a complete nothing incident. Free kick and get on with the game.
It's not at all an innocuous incident in the middle of the pitch though. Olise would've been played through on the right wing with no defender near him.
It's the same exact tactical stop of an attack that got Mendes the first yellow. By the rules it has to be a second yellow for stopping a promising attack.
According to IFAB Laws of the Game for 2026, a yellow card is issued for a "tactical handball" when a player deliberately handles the ball to interfere with or stop a promising attack (SPA).
It's not the same though.
Mendes has not tried to deliberately tackle someone and tripped them like the first yellow.
His crime is not having his arms glued to his body and someone has blasted the ball at his arm. Players getting sent off for arms too far from their body is just horrible for the sport.
You're just going off vibes at this point. No one said he tackled anyone. He tactically interferes with a promising attack though. Whether that's deliberate or not, his arm is in an unnatural position, it's a promising attack, and a clear handball.
According to IFAB Laws of the Game for 2026, a yellow card is issued for a "tactical handball" when a player deliberately handles the ball to interfere with or stop a promising attack (SPA).
It's a tactical handball if it's deliberate.
He's had the ball blasted at his arm that is away from his body. That is not deliberate.
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For the Neves handball, would it be a handball or a player deliberately picks up the ball after a pass from his teammate? Where in the rulebook that people are quoting so much does it say it is an offense, because the rule only says it's NOT an offense if it's from a teammate.
If the above case is a handball, for obvious reasons, then why isn't the Neves handball an offense given he made his body bigger in an unnatural position?
Also, in the Portuguese league itself (don't know it's the same ref as the tweet suggest):
If the above case is a handball, for obvious reasons, then why isn't the Neves handball an offense given he made his body bigger in an unnatural position?
Also, in the Portuguese league itself (don't know it's the same ref as the tweet suggest):
Making his body bigger to block the ball is deliberate handball, per the guidance to the refs. That's why PSG got the pen in the first leg. I guess the rules are different between the two games... Make it make sense.
Vibes post again. When was the last time you saw someone replicate Suarez against Ghana for a deliberate handball.
A deliberate handball in this sport starts at having the arm in an "unnatural" position. An unnatural position for the arm in this sport is one that enlarges the body's potential collision area with the ball. Both of these apply. The tactical handball applies.
It is, by the laws of the game, a second yellow offence after 28 mins that was clear for everyone to see. Only the ref came up with a Laimer handball.
PSG played great and went through deservedly after how the 90 minutes unfolded. Only that by the laws of the game they should've played about 65-70 minutes of that game with a player down as there was a tactical handball by a player already on a yellow.
What an unhinged thing to say.
What's so weird too is that the ref immediately "corrects" the decision to go for PSG and thanks the 4th official for mentioning Laimer's handball to him.
But the 4th official had almost no time to mention anything before he himself got involved with the furious Bayern bench.
The center ref also didn't consult with him again. Yet his gesture clearly indicates that he's thanking the 4th official for the input.
Bayern players also mentioned in the interviews that the ref said the 4th official gave him the correction tip but that they had never seen a 4th official immediately and definitively getting involved like this in a such a potentially big moment.
4th official had zero time to review and even if he did he got it catastrophically wrong.
The irony of you accusing me of dodging anything. I was discussing the referee’s performance tonight. That’s it. And you’ve started waffling on about a different referee in a different match.
Throw in your blatant failure to read/understand the rules as they apply to the ball hitting Neves arm and it looks like the main “refereeing problem”’ in this match was your own terrible takes on all the key incidents.
So the law is weird. The law does make reference to non-deliberate handball (i.e. arms too far away from body handball).
IFAB Law 12
"There are different circumstances when a player must be cautioned for unsporting behaviour including if a player:
...
handles the ball to interfere with or stop a promising attack, except where the referee awards a penalty kick for a non-deliberate handball offence"
So the rules seem to say refs can give penalties for stopping a promising attack with your arm, without giving a yellow card, as long as it wasn't deliberate. Are we meant to believe this Mendes handball if done in the penalty area is not a yellow, but outside the box it is a yellow? I'm under the impression this principle is applied everywhere on the pitch.
Ultimately, the rules should better reflect common sense and fairness. A yellow card for having the ball blasted at your arm in the middle of the pitch and you get sent off is just absurd. If the rules do allow that to happen then it needs changing.
The rules differentiate between types of handball - deliberate and unnatural position. Just because they are both handball offences doesn't mean they're both considered deliberate.
The rules state specifically you can give a penalty for handball and not give a yellow if it's non-deliberate. I'd be shocked if refs aren't allowed to apply that principle outside the box too.
Kompany on the Neves incident, at least someone understands the rules!
Should just revert back to the "if it's not Luis Suarez obviously deliberate, just play on" principle. It still gives the referee a margin of judgment but at least it would "feel" a lot more fair in a lot of instances imo. They've tried to put handball offenses in written rules now and it's become so unhinged that it's ridiculous - and once again less than 1% of fans actually know what actually is a foul and what isn't, so it doesn't become "more fair or equally applied" in anyone's view.
Watch the bottom replay closely. It looks like the ball hits his chest, then rolls off his arm, helping him to control it. That’s why Mendes appeals (which is a factor in his arm ending in an “unnatural position”). And it’s, presumably, what the assistant referee saw. The decision is far from baffling. Likewise every other incident in the game that has assorted online fans frothing at the mouth.
I'm not in favor of a sending off for this, but the call for handball on Laimer was plain wrong.
That's not really the interesting debate.
Assuming there's no handball from Bayern player, should Mendes see red for having the ball blasted at his arm?
That’s literally the only debatable decision in the match. And I can understand why it was given. The assistant referee, who had a better view, made the call. Which is fair enough.
Did I imagine things or did Laimer handle the ball before it even reached Mendes?
There’s barely a Luis Suarez handball during a season of PL football
I guess that’s up to the referee and whether or not he thought it was a cynical attempt to stop a promising attack. I would personally think you should only ever give a second yellow for a particularly egregious foul, even though I know the rules don’t specifically state that. I just think that’s the spirit of the game. But it’s a moot point as he blew up for a Bayern handball which happened first.
My overall point is how insane it is to read about corruption and match fixing in a game where the referee generally had a good game and we ended up with only one debatable decision over 95 minutes of football.
The quote of the rule you just posted literally says that the only exemption for a yellow card can be made for a non deliberate handball inside the penalty area, if, and only if, a penalty was awarded with the call.
The rules can't be applied in a way of "the Ruben Neves one isn't a handball because this is the exact phrasing in the recognized external additions to the rulebook" and then for the Nuno Mendes one they're suddenly to be applied loosely or glossed over despite them clearly and definitively stating what the effect of a tactical handball should be.
It is, by any definition, a tactical handball that stops a promising attack and therefore shall result in a yellow card according to the laws of the game (aside of if it's in the box and a pen is awarded like you just quoted).
How the referee then just within an instant changes his call based on a supposed input by the 4th official, but never consults with him for more than a second as the 4th official is busy with the Bayern bench, makes no sense.
In fact you can clearly see on the video of the scene that the 4th official must've had at most 1-2 seconds to give the ref any input about this critical situation, before the 4th official started calming down Bayern's bench.
Yet the main ref clearly gestured and supposedly mentioned to the players on the pitch, that the 4th official gave him the input that it was a Laimer handball prior to the Mendes handball.
There's two separate discussions here.
Whether Laimer handled it (I don't think he did)
The more interesting one is if Laimer didn't handle it, is it just that Mendes sees red for having the ball kicked at his arm?
Gotcha, seems I jumped in mid discussion.
Personally think both decisions can be justified. Can send him off, can leave him on the pitch. It's not a clearcut call either way for me. Will say though, I can rarely see past my anti Bayern bias