My take on it is that natural position applies when the ball is fired at you or your supporting your body (maybe on a slide tackle or getting up from the ground) etc.

Natural position is not, swinging your arms around the torso of an opponent in order to impede the opponents movement.

Therefore, its a deliberate action to move his hand, which has then hit the ball.

For me, that gives me the following criteria:

- He deliberately moved his hand
- He clearly contacted the ball with his hand
- The ball completely deviated from its position as a result of being hit by the hand
- The defender gained a clear advantage by handling the ball

therefore, penalty.

How a professional referee on VAR decided it wasn't a penalty is beyond hilarious.

I'd also question how the assistant handled it. I haven't yet watched the full audio so this might be answered in that conversation but they would have been looking straight at it from their position, so I'd be interested to hear their input. Or did they just say nothing and let the VAR/Ref get on with it.

Ste