Ex-ref details penalty box rule changes that will impact Sunderland & Championship rivals this season
The alterations have been made ahead of the EFL kicking off this weekend with Sunderland away at Cardiff City.
Sunderland begin their 2024/25 Championship campaign with an away trip to Cardiff City on Saturday lunchtime.
And ahead of the new season, former referee Kevin Friend has detailed a number of slight changes to the way that officials will be expected to approach decisions in and around the penalty area this term. Speaking to Sky Sports, the PGMOL representative revealed that there have been tweaks made to rulings on handballs and pushing in the area ahead of the commencement of the EFL campaign this weekend.
Here’s everything he had to say on the changes...
Handball Decisions
“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.”
Pushing in the Penalty Area
“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’re 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.”