would love to know where this phrase came from. i've always found it ridiculous, the purpose of the holding the ball free kick (along with all free kicks) is to penalise a player for breaking the rules, there's no "reward" about it. are we going to start talking about rewarding the fall when a guy gets shoved in the back? maybe rewarding the neck when a guy gets taken high?
as far as i can tell it's just a commentator invention, but if it creeps into the umpire interpretation it could further muddle the already near-indecipherable holding the ball rule. we already often see situations where guys who didn't really have a chance to get rid of it pinged for holding the ball, seemingly just because the tackle looked really good, i'd hate to think this has anything to do with it.
as far as i can tell it's just a commentator invention, but if it creeps into the umpire interpretation it could further muddle the already near-indecipherable holding the ball rule. we already often see situations where guys who didn't really have a chance to get rid of it pinged for holding the ball, seemingly just because the tackle looked really good, i'd hate to think this has anything to do with it.