The Premier League's Key Match Incidents Panel has upheld the decision not to award Everton's Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall a penalty at Bournemouth
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall of Everton reacts as he is tackled by Alex Scott of Bournemouth during the match between at the Vitality Stadium on August 29, 2026 but is was a challenge from James Hill that was reviewed for a potential penalty
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall of Everton reacts as he is tackled by Alex Scott of Bournemouth during the match between at the Vitality Stadium on August 29, 2026 but is was a challenge from James Hill that was reviewed for a potential penalty
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Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s long-running battle with Premier League referees as an Everton player continued as the competition’s Key Match Incidents Panel decided Christopher Kavanagh was correct not to award his side a penalty at Bournemouth after the Blues midfielder went down under a challenge from James Hill.
Following his £25million transfer from Chelsea in August last year, the midfielder found himself hit with a one-match suspension before September had finished after he picked up yellow cards in five straight Premier League matches. The last couple – dished out by Darren England against Liverpool at Anfield and Sam Barrott in a home game with West Ham United – were particularly controversial as the former was given for taking a free-kick ‘too quickly’ in a Merseyside Derby while the latter came for a last-minute challenge on Kyle Walker-Peters in which he won the ball.
At the time, Dewsbury-Hall said: “Forgive me if I’m wrong, and I might be, but some of these decisions are so hard to take. Mind boggling.” Meanwhile, manager David Moyes described the booking against the Hammers that triggered the ban as “a really shabby decision.”
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Reflecting on the punishment over five months on, in Reddit AMAs (Ask Me Anything), it was put to Dewsbury-Hall which yellow card bewildered him the most and he said: “It would have to be one of the last two. Taking a quick free-kick against Liverpool, I’m not sure there’s been many times where there’s been a booking for that in the past.
“That one bewildered me a lot. But the one that hurt probably the most was the fifth one because it was a completely fair, clean tackle in the 94th minute of the game.
“So to get a yellow for that was gutting, especially because it was in their box as well and I’d won the ball cleanly, so we may have scored, and the lad after I made the tackle said ‘yeah, you got the ball cleanly’.
“I don’t know how many yellows I’ve got since then, it’s not something that happens a lot, so it was such a shock for me to be getting suspended so early. But, definitely one of the last two. It hurt a lot, and yeah, it made me maybe have some sleepless nights.”
Kavanagh was also unmoved when it came to awarding Dewsbury-Hall a penalty in the historic first Merseyside Derby at Hill Dickinson Stadium on April 19 this year. Asked in his post-match press conference whether he thought the Blues should have been given a spot-kick following Curtis Jones’ challenge, Moyes said: “I do, yeah. Why would he go down if he’s not?
“You might say it could go down as a soft contact or whatever but, well, if he touches him at all, why would he not [take the chance to shoot], he’s in on goal to shoot and finish, why would he not take the opportunity to do that?”
Fast forward to the action at the Vitality Stadium 11 days ago and Dewsbury-Hall went down in the Bournemouth area in the 55th minute following a challenge from James Hill, which at the time, this correspondent said 'looked very clumsy from the Bournemouth player'. However, neither on-field official Kavanagh nor John Brooks on VAR duty at Stockley Park, who subsequently took charge of the Blues’ 2-2 draw with Manchester United the following weekend, believed it was a penalty.
The Premier League’s Key Match Incidents Panel unanimously supported the decisions of Kavanagh and Brooks and noted of the incident: “The referee’s call of no penalty was supported with this being deemed a collision between the two players rather than a foul.”
In 2025/26, Everton became the first club in seven seasons of VAR not to get an overturn in their favour. The Blues also finished bottom of the net VAR interventions table (calculated by taking the total number of VAR interventions in a club’s favour and then subtracting those that have gone against them) with a net score of minus five.