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Sunderland begin their 2024/25 Championship campaign with an away trip to Cardiff City on Saturday lunchtime.
And ahead of the new season, former referee Kevin Friend has detailed a number of slight changes to the way that officials will be expected to approach decisions in and around the penalty area this term. Speaking to Sky Sports, the PGMOL representative revealed that there have been tweaks made to rulings on handballs and pushing in the area ahead of the commencement of the EFL campaign this weekend.
Here’s everything he had to say on the changes…
“Regarding handball there’s only a slight change and tweak into where we are going with that. I think one of the areas in that is with the change of trajectory [of the ball].
“So if a player takes a shot or a cross and it hits a player’s foot and it changes trajectory or changes direction and it hits the arm that might be out unnaturally, we aren’t looking to penalise that as a penalty kick. We saw some soft penalties last season for handball so if it is a clear directional movement from the ball onto the hand, then we are not going to be penalising that.
