Every 2024–25 Premier League VAR Error: Man Utd’s Season Swung on Official Blunder | OneFootball

Despite being despised by large swathes of football supporters, VAR is here to stay, and 2024–25 was another turbulent campaign for the technology and its users in the Premier League.

During its fifth season in the English top flight, VAR was once again at the centre of the discourse on a weekly basis, with its intervention—or lack thereof—consistently irking managers, players and fans across the country.

Every club has started to collate a dossier of the various ways in which they have been wronged by VAR, with the echo chambers of social media only providing a playground for conspiracy theorists to underline these ‘injustices’.

There can be no denying that the Premier League’s officials made plenty of errors in 2024–25 but, courtesy of ESPN, we can now see which clubs were most affected.

How Many VAR Errors Were There in the 2024–25 Premier League?

The VAR can intervene to overturn red cards. / PA Images/IMAGO

VAR errors are determined by the Premier League’s Key Match Incidents Panel (KMI), made up of three former coaches and/or players and one representative from both the Premier League and the division’s refereeing body, Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL).

These five panellists then vote on key incidents, basing their decision on the referee’s original call and whether or not VAR should have intervened. Whether a decision is considered right or wrong depends on the majority vote of the five-person committee.

According to the KMI panel, there were only 18 VAR errors in the 2024–25 Premier League, a significant reduction from 31 in 2023–24. Not all those errors affected the outcome of the match in which they were made, either.

2024–25 Premier League VAR Error Table

Brentford were the unluckiest Premier League side last season. / IMAGO/Visionhaus

Which club were wronged most frequently by VAR in 2024–25? Well, the answer is Brentford, who had three errors go against them and zero in their favour. Similarly, Bournemouth had two errors that negatively impacted them and the Cherries benefitted from none.

Everton were the most fortunate side in the division, with three errors going for them and none against. Brighton also had three in their favour, although they did have one adversely affect them.

It’s often assumed that the division’s ’Big Six’ have the backing of the officials and Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur both finished with an error difference of +1. The Premier League champions were lucky on two occasions but were also on the wrong end of one error—Everton’s James Tarkowski avoiding a straight red card for his reckless challenge on Alexis Mac Allister in April.

There were no errors involving either Chelsea or Manchester City last term—something both sets of supporters may contest—while Manchester United and Arsenal were both short-changed. The Gunners had one error go against them as Myles Lewis-Skelly was wrongly dismissed at Wolverhampton Wanderers, while the Red Devils had two against and one in their favour last season.

Man Utd’s season was totally transformed by one of the 18 VAR errors in the Premier League last term, with Erik ten Hag sacked after the club’s late 2–1 defeat to West Ham United in October. Matthijs de Ligt was penalised for a supposed foul in the penalty area that allowed Jarrod Bowen to score a winner from the spot in stoppage-time. However, VAR’s decision to recommend an on-field review for David Coote was ultimately incorrect.

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