Premier League cracking down on holding penalties in area

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Premier League referees' chief Howard Webb has vowed that officials will get tougher on holding in the penalty area this season -- but it will be done in a measured way so it lasts through the campaign.

In recent seasons there have been initiatives to tackle handball, added time and players kicking the ball away which have been very strictly applied at first and then rolled back, leading to accusations of a change of direction.

Webb explained that after speaking to captains and other stakeholders in the game that it was felt grappling, or holding, inside the area wasn't been penalised enough. But he insisted there should be no spike in penalties at the start of the season, and it should only be for clear and extreme actions.

"What's been pretty successful in the last couple of seasons, certainly in the time since I've been here and been working with the Premier League, is that we've been seeking feedback from stakeholders in the game," Webb said. "By the stakeholders I mean clubs, captains, managers, technical directors or football directors, fans, the referees, pundits and what they have you to say, 'what type of game do you like to see in terms of how the officiating affects that?'

"The captains were surveyed and then we looked at a range of views alongside the other stakeholders, saying we think that you need to penalize [holding] a little bit more in certain circumstances.

"Holding happens in different places within the penalty area -- sometimes on the ball, sometimes off the ball and it varies in terms of extremes. What we've said to the officials is if you get one of those situations where one player is clearly dragging another one to the floor in an extreme non-football action, even if it's off the ball, we expect the referee to see it. Or if it's a clear one, then the VAR will intervene and recommend the referee looks at it at the screen because it fits the criteria that we've laid out. An extreme non-footballing action which prevents an opponent from moving.

"There'll still be some grey situations where referees call stands, where the referee says no it is a small touch, it's not impacted his ability to move towards the ball. If it's mutual holding, that will stay as referees call on the field, but when there's no considerations to support the referee's call, then we'll expect the VAR to get involved as well.

"Something I've been keen to stress as well is that this is not meant to be a two-week campaign, six-week campaign, August and September, then we forget all about it. If we went in like a steam train and gave every little bit of contact, then it would, I'm telling you it would be a six-week campaign. We'd get told very quickly to ease off on what we're doing.

"We have to take the game with us, we have to be credible, we have to identify those situations that do fall in line with the feedback that we had, that there's just a few too many examples of players clearly pulling people back, impacting their ability to move to the ball or some clear extreme actions that are not being penalized.

"We're working too hard to defend those and they're the ones I expect us to catch. I would expect a few more penalties given for holding offences than what we've seen, but not a huge swing of the pendulum because that's really difficult to sustain over a period of time. "

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