Geoff Hurst, the Hand of God and the Biggest Rows in World Football

For instance, if a player goes down without being tripped or kicked, he's cheating, isn't he? Not necessarily. If he jumps out of the way of a bad challenge, he is behaving sensibly and properly. So when a player goes down without there having been any contact, a ref has to decide whether he is preserving his own shins or just diving. One high-profile incident like that occurred on 19 August 2006 at Bramall Lane. Liverpool's Steven Gerrard hit the deck in the penalty area although there had been no contact from Sheffield United's Chris Morgan. Rob Styles, the referee, awarded a penalty and explained later that, in his opinion, Morgan had intended to foul Gerrard, who had skipped out of the way and fallen to the floor. Styles received lots of stick, predictably, from writers and broadcasters for talking about ‘intent’. Equally predictably, Neil Warnock, who was the Sheffield United manager, was particularly scathing about the very idea of a match official trying to guess Morgan's intentions. He was highly critical of Styles. No change there then. But Law Twelve says that it is a foul if someone trips or attempts to trip an opponent. That law required Styles to decide what Morgan was trying to do. The ref was right and Warnock was wrong. No change there, either.

Another example came at Ewood Park on 9 November 2008 when Chelsea's Nicolas Anelka chased a poor back-pass into the Blackburn Rovers' penalty area. Goalkeeper Paul Robinson came out and, in trying to evade the challenge, Anelka lost his balance. That time, the ref, Chris Foy, did not award a penalty. I am not sure he was right, but I am sure it is always an extremely difficult judgement call.

Now, what about when a player feels the merest touch of an opponent's boot against his shin and tumbles to the ground? Does he have a right to make sure everyone realizes that he has been fouled, however slightly? I can tell you that there were many occasions, when I was refereeing, when a player stayed upright after getting his shin tapped and I said to myself, under my breath, ‘If you'd gone down there, I'd have given a penalty.’ But I didn't give anything, because there would have been no credibility in penalizing the defender for such a slight touch with the attacker still on his feet. So, do you blame strikers for flinging themselves to the floor if they feel contact in the penalty area? I don't.

To complicate matters further, there are times when an attacker effectively causes the foul against him—but it is still a foul. One example featured Thierry Henry when he was playing for France against England. It was on 17 June 2004 in the European Championships in Portugal. Henry was chasing the ball into the English penalty area and our goalkeeper, David James, was rushing out of his goal to get to the ball first. I believe that Henry calculated that, if he could arrive fractionally before James and tip the ball away with his toe, then the goalkeeper's momentum would bring about a foul. That is exactly what happened. Henry toe-ended the ball, and James, who was already diving to either block a shot or get his hands on the ball, inadvertently clattered into the French striker and knocked away his legs. Quite correctly, a penalty was awarded, Zidane scored it and France won 2-1. Henry's only intention as he raced forward had been to invite the foul. But it was still a foul—and I don't imagine anyone would consider what Henry did was cheating. So I hope you can see that the whole question of going down in the penalty area is not at all straightforward.

Now put yourself in the boots of a defender. An opponent beats you with speed or sleight of foot and, although you go for the ball, you kick his leg instead. It's a foul. Simple. But if the player beats you fairly and squarely and, after he has gone past you, you scythe him down to stop him getting away, it's a foul again, but it is a worse type of foul. We can all agree on that, I hope. So, what if, once the opponent has beaten you with the ball, you grab his shirt from behind and stop him? Is that better or worse than scything him down? In one sense, the shirt-grabbing is less heinous than hacking someone down. Knocking over an opponent could do serious damage. Shirt-grabbing usually does not endanger anyone's health. But some would argue that grabbing a shirt is more devious and less part of football.

So now let's go back to Maradona. His handball against England did not put anyone in danger of injury but it was duplicitous. So, if someone had fouled him deliberately as he closed in on his second goal, would that have been better or worse than his handball? Would it have been acceptable?

I have a few more scenarios to consider. Did any Englishman complain when Lineker went down extremely easily in the penalty area (on 1 July 1990) in a World Cup quarterfinal against Cameroon? Was there a single English murmur of disquiet on 7 June 2002 when Michael Owen crumpled to the floor to win a penalty against Argentina in the World Cup? When David Beckham converted the penalty, we all went wild. Did any of us question Owen's willingness to go down? What about when Peter Crouch tugged the dreadlocks of Brent Sancho to climb above him and head England's goal against Trinidad and Tobago on 10 June 2006 in the World Cup?

One more question. This one goes to me as well as to you. If Wayne Rooney handles the ball to score a goal in a World Cup quarterfinal, would we be as critical of him as we have been of Maradona?

Interestingly, an Englishman did ‘score’ with his hand in a big match. Paul Scholes tried it for Manchester United against Zenit St Petersburg in the European Super Cup Final on 28 August 2008. Danish referee Claus Bo Larsen spotted it and cautioned him. It was his second yellow card and so he was sent off. But if Scholes had got away with it, what would he have said afterwards? What would we have said?

Do you still think that the issue of cheating is straightforward and clear-cut?

Maradona's Hand of God goal raises a refereeing question as well. How on earth did the match officials miss the handball? The referee was a Tunisian, Ali Bennaceur. When newspapers hark back to that day, many state categorically that the quarterfinal was Bennaceur's first and last match as a World Cup referee. That is nonsense. Not even FIFA would expect a man to go straight into such a highly pressurized situation. He refereed an earlier match (in England's group, as it happens) between Portugal and Poland. He also ran the line in a couple of matches before the quarterfinal. However, because of his horrific mistake in permitting the Hand of God goal, the quarterfinal was certainly his last World Cup match.

THE REF'S DECISION

The role of the linesman was crucial that day in 1986—or rather, the lack of action by the linesman, Bogdan Dotchev, from Bulgaria. He was in the standard position, level with the second-last defender. There was no question of offside, and no ‘ball in and out of play’ to worry about. He was looking across at the incident, with an unimpaired view. Shilton is six feet, one inch tall and had his arms up to punch the ball. Maradona is five feet five. To ‘score’ the Argentine had to have his own hand several inches above his head. After the incident, Maradona looked immediately towards the linesman, presumably fearing that he had seen the handball. So why on earth didn't Dotchev spot it?

Well, here is a stunning and appalling revelation. He claimed that he did. Dotchev said he saw the handball but did not flag. It took him more than two decades to make that statement, but it is a breathtaking admission. In an interview in January 2007, Dotchev argued that, once the referee had signalled a goal, he could not intervene. His exact words were, ‘With the ref having said the goal was valid, I couldn't have waved my flag and told him the goal wasn't good—the rules were different back then.’

No, they were not. The rules—Laws actually, Bogdan—certainly did not prevent a linesman from signalling for an infringement. I don't doubt that FIFA's general instructions to linesmen included telling them to allow the refs to referee. I imagine as well that on the day of the quarterfinal referee Ali Bennaceur would have told the two linesmen—Dotchev and Berny Ulloa Morera from Costa Rica— to let him make the key decisions. But nothing in the instructions or the Laws of the Game then or now absolves the linesman of responsibility. If he saw a handball such as Maradona's, and the referee did not see it, he had a duty to signal.

Note that in 1986 there was no attempt to use officials with a common language. That came later, but it was not the issue. Whatever language you speak, if you spot a handball, you flag for it. It is much more significant that this was before specialist assistant referees were introduced at World Cups. Referees shared the task of running the line. You need to know, as well, that referees are competitive and can be resentful when others get the appointments they expected or desired. With that background, read some more of the comments made by Dotchev about that day in 1986. He said, ‘European refs take charge of at least one or two important games per month and are used to big-match pressure. What is there for Bennaceur to referee in the desert where there is nothing but camels?’

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