Was it a foul, or not?

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

I know what he's trying to say.

It is very possible that an official can definitively see that there was no contact in one spot because there was nothing near that spot (hand/ball) but you could see that the defender's hand was near the elbow but couldn't directly tell if they hit it or not---another player blocked your view of the elbow at the last moment. However, you could, to a great accuracy, tell whether there was contact or not from the effects of the possible hit....the arm twitching sideways in an unnatural way or the ball leaving the hand in an abnormal way.

Well, since you put it that way....