The Premier League‘s Key Match Incidents (KMI) Panel has ruled that the VAR intervention to cancel Everton‘s stoppage-time penalty against Manchester United last month was correct.
The score was 2-2 three minutes into stoppage time when a shot by Idrissa Gueye was saved by André Onana. As Ashley Young moved toward the rebound, he went down and appealed for a penalty. Referee Andy Madley pointed to the spot for a foul by Harry Maguire, which was checked by the VAR, Matt Donohue.
After visiting the monitor, Madley reversed his decision and restarted play with a drop ball to the United keeper, controversially denying Everton the chance to score a late winner.
The intervention was controversial as Matthijs de Ligt had also tugged on Young’s shirt, but the panel primarily made a judgement on the referee’s decision to penalise Maguire, which was wrong.
The panel unanimously voted 5-0 that Madley was incorrect to give the spot-kick, and 4-1 that the VAR was right to step in.
The comments of the KMI Panel, seen by ESPN, noted that “the contact from the defenders doesn’t match the exaggerated fall from the attacker.”
No vote was held on the specific actions of De Ligt. However, one panellist took issue in that “the referee should not have been sent to the monitor as it wasn’t a clear and obvious error due to the foot-on-foot contact by Maguire and shirt pull on Young by de Ligt which wasn’t shown to the referee “
The referee was actually shown the pulls by De Ligt, but from only one angle.
The panel has five members, made up of three former players and/or coaches, plus one representative each from the Premier League and PGMOL. It was set up at the start of the 2022-23 season to give an assessment of decision-making rather than relying on the views of PGMOL or the clubs themselves. The judgement is intended to provide an arm’s-length assessment of all major match incidents.
No VAR errors were logged for the 11 games played from Feb. 19 to Feb. 24, though it was felt there had been two on-field mistakes which didn’t meet the threshold for an intervention.
The panel voted 4-1 that Brentford should have had a penalty against Leicester City for Woyo Coulibaly‘s challenge on Kevin Schade, but supported no VAR intervention 4-1.
It also felt that Kevin Danso had been fouled by Dara O’Shea, voting 3-2 that Tottenham Hotspur should have been given a spot-kick at Ipswich Town. It was unanimous that the VAR was correct not to intervene.
Other controversial incidents were supported, including Aston Villa‘s claims for a penalty when Lamare Bogarde appeared to be held back by Chelsea‘s Marc Cucurella. The panel voted 4-1 in favour of the decisions by referee Michael Oliver and the VAR, Paul Tierney, not to give a spot kick.
There have been 12 VAR errors logged this season, compared to 24 at the same stage in the 2023-24 campaign.
