The Key Match Incidents panel is the latest to give its verdict on Fulham's ruled out goal on Chelsea after the decision came in for criticism from PGMOL chief Howard Webb
Referee Robert Jones
Referee Robert Jones ruled out Joshua King's goal
Fulham and Wolves are latest victims of errors by VAR in the Premier League, following a review by the Key Match Incidents panel. The decision to rule out Josh King's goal against Chelsea and the denial of a penalty after Everton star Iliman Ndiaye fouled Hugo Bueno have both been identified by the five-member team.
The panel reviews the major refereeing decisions in the Premier League each week, with the two errors noted the most egregious on this occasion. They agreed that video assistant referee Michael Salisbury was incorrect to intervene at Stamford Bridge by highlighting Rodrigo Muniz stepping on Trevoh Chalobah.
They also noted that referee Rob Jones was incorrect to disallow the goal. They wrote: "The panel unanimously supported the original on-field call to allow play to continue and award the goal."
The panel further then acknowledged that Wolves should have been awarded a spotkick in defeat to Everton. However, only three of the five members of the panel identified VAR Craig Pawson's decision not to intervene as an error.
PGMOL chief Howard Webb had already blasted the decision to deny Fulham's goal. “It wasn’t controversial, it was wrong,” he said on Match Officials Mic'd Up.
“We’ve established some principles in terms of how we officiate in the Premier League and how we use VAR. They sit around a high threshold for penalising contact – it aids the flow and rhythm and tempo of the game.
“We’ve also established a high bar for intervention with VAR. In other words, if situations are not clearly wrong and the referee has made a call on the field, that call will stand, or at least should stand. And that’s the message that we give to all of our VARs, particularly when we come to taking away goals that are so obviously such a crucial moment in the game.
“We should only be taking goals away when the evidence is very clear that that’s the only thing we can do and that’s the guidance we give to our officials.”
Rodrigo Muniz stands on the boot of Trevoh Chalobah, leading to Josh King's goal being disallowed
Rodrigo Muniz stands on the boot of Trevoh Chalobah
Webb added: “In this situation, that guidance wasn’t followed properly. There was a misjudgement by the officials involved in this situation about how that contact happened between Muniz and Chalobah. The officials got super focused on that contact without looking at the full context of how it happened.
“It happens when Muniz is in possession of the ball, controls the ball, turns naturally and brings his foot down on to Chalobah who has moved his foot into a space which the Fulham player has the right to put his foot into in that normal way. So, a misjudgement by the officials.
“Obviously, as always, we take the learning, we look at what we can do better to ensure we reduce these to a minimum. But we’ve done really well in the last 18 months or so to reduce our involvement, with respect to the referee’s call, almost all of the time in the right way and, as a result of that, we’ve seen less interventions in the Premier League than any other major league in Europe, so we need to continue doing that.
“We understand the importance of these decisions, we understand that, if we get it wrong like we did on this occasion, the impact is significant and we’re always, always striving to do better.”
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