Starting in the 2025-26 season, Premier League referees will enforce stricter penalties for holding during set-pieces. Professional Game Match Officials Limited chief, Howard Webb, emphasized that feedback indicated a significant number of holding incidents were not penalized. Variables like duration of holding and impact on player movement will guide VAR analyses. Although similar initiatives have previously failed to produce noticeable changes, Webb assures commitment to sustained enforcement, avoiding temporary crackdowns.
"The feedback that we had is 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 are not being penalised."
"I would expect this time next year to have been a few more penalties given for holding offences than what we've seen this year. But not a huge swing of the pendulum because that's really difficult to sustain over a period of time."
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