Many Newcastle United supporters have been reacting to a Twitter post from @NUFC360 in which they relayed a report from The Athletic regarding the ongoing debate around handballs.
David Ornstein and Matt Slater reported that ‘Premier League referees will be told to show greater leniency in handball decisions starting from this coming weekend‘.
During a meeting that took place on Tuesday, it was agreed that the officials ‘apply greater subjectivity’ when adhering to the laws of the game.
Steve Bruce’s side benefitted from one of the recent controversial decisions and as a result, the Magpies earned a draw at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, however, the 59-year-old manager described the directive around handballs as “a nonsense“.
Following the update, here is how a sample of the St. James’ Park faithful have responded on the social media platform.
20+ controversial pens this season… nothing happens
Newcastle get a controversial pen.. laws adjusted— Dell ? 3-0 (@agbnufc) September 29, 2020
Soon as it affects big six team the rules get changed
— CORRUPT PREM CANMEISTER (@BinCanmeister) September 29, 2020
Cue greater confusion and polar opposite decisions..
Rules should be black and white and not open to interpretation
— Al (@AlanIrvine8) September 29, 2020
Do you think giving the referees more subjectivity is a good thing?
Yes
No
If they use common sense then great.
If they bottle making decisions against certain teams in certain circumstances and then claim “greater leniency”, that’s not great.
— RJ (@rjNUFC) September 29, 2020
So they’re changing the way the handball law can be interpreted, part-way through a season? Recipe for disaster.
— Sam Cook (@The_21st_Doctor) September 29, 2020
Top 6 at it again
— The wee club in the North (@Margeandrews20) September 30, 2020
So bringing in the ‘opinion of the ref’ again. Defeats the point of VAR for handball then
— Steve Ingram (@singram999) September 29, 2020
It’s clear from the above responses that some of these Newcastle supporters feel these changes wouldn’t have been made had the controversial decisions not had a negative impact on some of the league’s more powerful clubs.
In our view, giving the referee more ‘subjectivity’ could lead to inconsistency and, therefore, we can understand why some fans are concerned by this.