"That's not even a touch" is one of the most common things said to a referee at club level, usually right after a net fault has been called on a play that looked, to everyone on court, like nothing happened. The confusion isn't really about whether contact occurred — it's about what actually counts as a fault versus what's allowed contact.
The part players usually get wrong
Modern volleyball rules are more forgiving of incidental net contact than most players realise. Brushing the net with hair, or contact that doesn't interfere with play and isn't during the action of playing the ball, generally isn't a fault. What actually gets called is contact that happens while a player is playing the ball, or contact that clearly interferes with the opponent's ability to play.
So the two most common "that wasn't a touch" moments are usually one of these:
- Contact happened, but not during a genuine play on the ball — often still technically a fault if it interferes, which is where most disagreement comes from
- Contact happened well after the ball had already left the player's area of play, which is a stricter judgement call than most players expect
As an Australian nationally accredited referee, this is one of the calls I get challenged on most often mid-match — not because it's misapplied, but because most players have never had the actual trigger explained to them.
What referees are actually watching for
Three things, in order: whether the contact happened during the action of playing the ball, whether it interfered with the opposing team's ability to play, and whether the timing lines up with an active rally rather than incidental follow-through. Referees aren't watching for "did the net move" — a small net wobble on its own isn't enough. It's about the relationship between the contact and the actual play.
Why this one causes more arguments than it should
Because it happens fast, close to the action players are already focused on, and because the "incidental contact is fine" rule genuinely changed the standard from what many players learned years ago. A lot of the frustration is really outdated expectations meeting a rule that's actually more permissive than people assume — until it crosses into interference, at which point it's called firmly.
Net contact is one of a small set of calls that consistently confuse even experienced players. I've broken down the full set — the ones that get missed, and how they're actually assessed — properly in one place.
See the full rules guide →The bottom line
Not every net touch is a fault, and that surprises a lot of players who learned volleyball under stricter, older interpretations. The actual test is whether the contact happened during play on the ball and whether it interfered — not whether the net moved at all.