I just find it curious that so many people seem to be convinced — yet at the same time, a surprisingly large number of those I would classify as sufficiently intelligent, yet so heavily influenced by the media?! — that the many handball discussions are triggered by the malice of the referees or the indecisiveness of the rules commissions. They are neither of these nor of that.
To do so, one would only have to read my argumentation more carefully and follow the logic conveyed there and possibly agree with it, gladly reconsidering/re-reading it two or three times. The reason for the discussions is that every player who commits a handball — by not moving his arms out of the way, as he used to do, as a precaution, but in a mind-controlled manner — is today just as intentionally NOT moving his arms out of the way — is given an alibi which, at least in the first perception, gives him such a good chance that the handball will NOT be punished, but also, in retrospect, is given the lenient verdict of the media in each case, that he “really couldn’t do anything about it”, that it was “only the stupid interpretation of the rules that put him at a disadvantage here”, that “this handball is really not worthy of punishment”, that he “would never ever have had a chance to move his arms away from the distance”, that it “would not be an unnatural arm position” and that it “does not represent a widening of the body”, no matter how much this would contradict intuitive logic (the body is virtually ALWAYS a bit wider due to the arms; In the past, one only made the distinction whether he would have put his arm on or, once bent, would have widened the body in this way; an argument in the direction of whether he would have done it intentionally was not considered; the simple motto in the past: “bad luck” and “it’s your own fault”; keep your arms close to your body and nothing will happen to you).
The player who commits a handball today does not feel bad or guilty even if he is punished (by a penalty), because afterwards he is defended by every commentator, expert in the studio or, unfortunately, by you “thinking” people (which, in my opinion, should distinguish you from the media representatives in particular). So: even if his team loses and he, as the person who caused the penalty, should actually have a guilty conscience and at the same time the simple learning effect “keep your arms to your body, then there will be neither discussion nor penalty kick” (as was usual in my youth) but can instead cite “the stupid rules” and the “vicious referee” — and gets masses of applause instead of reproaches for it.
