St Mirren boss Stephen Robinson asks for 'common sense' approach to stop handball rule spoiling Scottish football

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Saints boss Stephen Robinson wants to see a more common sense approach applied to stop VAR handball decisions “spoiling” Scottish football.The number of penalties being dished out in the Premiership has skyrocketed since the introduction of the video technology in October, with a large proportion of those given for handball offences.St Mirren have been hit hard from the spot this season already having given away eight penalties – half of which were for handballs.Robinson believes the referees implementing the rules have an “impossible” job because their hands are tied behind their backs by the letter of the law.But the Buddies manager hopes a Zoom call he and other Premiership bosses had with the SFA’s head of refereeing operations Crawford Allan and SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell earlier this week will lead to a change in the rules to allow refs to have more ownership over the handball rule.Robinson explained: “I was on a VAR call on Tuesday with all the referees, Ian Maxwell and Crawford Allan.“It was interesting.

There were a few managers giving views and they were giving us their views on VAR.“I won’t name any names, but myself and two other managers asked about the handball rule.

For me, it is absolutely ridiculous and that’s not down to the referees, who are merely applying the laws as they stand.“What we want is for common sense to be applied within those laws, but the referees aren’t allowed to do that because they have to follow it to the letter.“One point was made about a player who wasn’t even looking at the ball and an opponent headed it against him and a penalty was awarded, even though the header hadn’t been on target.