Rules regarding a touching ball: catch-22 situation?

[paul_zxz]

During a match earlier this week, Murphy was left with a shot where by the cue ball was insanely close to a red ball. It took the referee a good few minutes of deliberating as to wether to rule the balls touching or not. She finally came to the conclusion that they were NOT touching.

John Vergo then in commentary stated that as the referee had now called the position she was unable to retract it. He went on to explain that this was because a player's hand moving the cloth or by walking around the table may cause the balls to move and then touch.

With this said; if the balls did move so that they were touching in an unavoidable act, how would the player play the shot without fouling? For example; say that this was the last red on the table, the position was called NOT touching, the balls moved before a shot was taken so that they were now touching. It would seem that as the NOT touching call had been made, if the player were to play away and not hit the red it would be a foul. Conversly, as the balls were now touching, if the player were to indeed hit the red it would clearly be a push shot.

This would inevitably result in a catch-22 situation where the player was unable to take a shot. What would happen?

[matt1987]

the referee would move the white so they were not touching. this happened in liang wenbo's match when he was climbing onto the table to play a thin safety off the side of the pack. twice he climbed on the table and the white rocked onto the red the ref had to replace it and in the end he used the rest

[Billy]

As I was reading that I was thinking, What a fantastic puzzler! I'm forever trying to come up with impossible, unanswerable situations. And then the answer turns out to be as simple as that! What a let down

[DawRef]

Section 3 Rule 8 (g)

If a stationary object ball, not touching the cue-ball when examined by the referee, is later seen to be in contact with the cue-ball before a stroke has been made, the balls shall be repositioned by the referee to his satisfaction.