Mark Halsey insists refereeing standards have fallen and handball law has big problem
“Was Denzel Dumfries impeding the goalkeeper’s line of vision? No, he wasn't, so then, he's not involved in active play in that situation. Was he interfering or impacting with the goalkeeper being able to make a save or challenge for the ball? Again, you've got to say no, because the goalkeeper was never going to be able to make that movement,” says Halsey in exclusive conversation with Tribalfootball.
“That incident took nearly three minutes, and for me, what should have happened was they should have afforded Anthony Taylor a review to go and look at the monitor. His assistant wouldn’t have been able to tell how far Dumfries was from the goalkeeper. I think that's a perfectly good goal,” Halsey continues before drawing attention to the controversial situation which prevented Belgium from equalising in their 1-0 defeat against Slovakia.
“VAR should never have come in for that incident because it wasn't a deliberate handball. If Lois Openda goes on and scores that goal, then yes, it's rightly disallowed because that's the law. Even if you handball it accidentally, and you put the ball in the back of the net, the goal has to be disallowed.
“But he's jostling with a defender, he gets a little nudge, he's in a running motion, so his arms are in a natural position for that phase of play. Therefore, it's not a deliberate handball.
"The defender still has a lot he can do. Openda has to get to the touchline, cross the ball, Lukaku has to score. So, it's a good goal because the handball from Openda is accidental,” says Halsey who believes the game has a “massive problem” with the handball law in general.
“We're seeing handballs given for arms being in a natural position for certain phases of play and what we've got to remember is the of handling the ball. It has to be a deliberate act. It has to be a deliberate movement of the arms.
"Your arms have to be in an unnatural position making your body bigger. And we're seeing handballs given in the Premier League that never should have been given."
Standard considerably down
Handballs are only one in a string of issues for players and managers in the Premier League, who never tires of telling us how poor the level of refereeing has been, but what does the former FIFA listed referee think of the current level.
”I think we've got some really good officials in the Premier League like Anthony Taylor and Michael Oliver. They've done well at the Euros as well. I always compare the referees' performance to the goalkeepers. You can be fantastic and then you make that one mistake which everybody's talking about.
“I do think the standard has gone down considerably, though. I don't necessarily blame the referees. I blame the training education; the leadership and I blame the coaching staff. And obviously the assessors that we have in English football.
“When Howard Webb took charge, he had a massive, massive job to do and he still has. When a new manager comes into a football club, he brings in a whole new coaching staff. For me, that should be no different with Howard Webb. He hasn't done that. He's inherited all the people that Mike Riley had under his watch.
“The refereeing standards were steadily dropping over the years with Mike Riley in charge. Now Howard Webb's in charge. He's got to sit down and take a look at what he's got, look at his backroom staff. And I think he needs to make changes.”
Mark Halsey was talking to Tribalfootball on behalf of Poker Sites