The UEFA Football Board held its inaugural meeting at the House of European Football in Nyon, Switzerland, reflecting on various topics, including the Laws of the Game and refereeing matters such as the line of intervention, VAR, the handball rule and player behaviour. In an engaging and constructive discussion, the Board expressed great satisfaction with the current level of refereeing in the European club competitions, especially in the UEFA Champions League, and suggested that the same unified approach to refereeing should be applied in domestic competitions across Europe.
With regard to the Laws of the Game, which stipulate that not every touch of a player's hand/arm with the ball is an offence, the Board issued the following recommendations for next season for better compliance of the Laws with the nature of the game:
• In their guidelines for the next season, the Board recommends that UEFA should clarify that no handball offence should be called on a player if the ball is previously deflected from his own body and, in particular, when the ball does not go towards the goal.
• On the same notice, the Board recommends that not every handball should automatically lead to a caution after every shot at goal, as anticipated by current guidelines.
• The Board encourages the referees to be more decisive in cautioning players who display unsporting behaviour, especially when attempting to deceive the referee by feigning injury or pretending to have been fouled.
• UEFA should launch an initiative towards the IFAB for the amendment of Law 12, which foresees that a player should be sent off for denying the opposing team a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by a handball offence. The Board feels players should be sent off only if they deliberately and intentionally touch the ball with their hand/arm. In case of other handball offences, the players should only be cautioned.
The inaugural meeting was attended by Eric Abidal, Rafael Benítez, Fabio Capello, Petr Čech, Luís Figo, Robbie Keane, Jürgen Klinsmann, Ronald Koeman, Philipp Lahm, Michael Laudrup, Paolo Maldini, Roberto Martínez, Predrag Mijatović, Gareth Southgate, Patrick Vieira, Rudi Völler, Javier Zanetti and Zinedine Zidane. Other Board members, who could not attend the meeting, were also consulted and shared their opinions on these topics as part of this project.
Source: UEFA
