Farai Hallam trusted his own judgment on Yerson Mosquera incident despite a VAR review and, in doing so, showed the way forward
I refereed professional football for 25 years. We were talking about handball when I started and it remains one of the most discussed topics in the game.
One reason for this is that we’ve had a number of law changes by the International Football Association Board (Ifab) over recent years. All were made in an effort to achieve consistent outcomes for the benefit of the game, but we can sometimes end up with different interpretations of the laws.
There were two handball shouts in the biggest match of the weekend: Manchester United’s visit to Arsenal, overseen by the experienced referee Craig Pawson, who managed the game very well. He didn’t get involved unless he really had to, he let play flow and he’s rightly received plaudits for that. At the end, everyone was talking about the game, not the referee, and that’s all you can really ask for.
The biggest shout involved Harry Maguire, whose arm stopped Mikel Merino’s shot in the area when United were 2-1 up. I didn’t think this was a handball offence. Maguire was going to ground making a challenge and his outstretched arm was there as support. He didn’t make his body unnaturally bigger; it was a normal action. Where do you expect him to put his arm otherwise?
