Premier League refereeing errors rise as VAR mistakes hit season high | OneFootball

Refereeing errors in the Premier League have risen this season, with mistakes on the pitch and through VAR increasing across most key categories, BBC Sport has reported.

The league’s independent Key Match Incidents (KMI) panel has identified four further errors in its latest review, taking the overall total to 54. At the same stage last season, the figure stood at 44, although Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMO) insists the long-term trend remains an improvement on the 70 errors recorded after 30 matches in the 2023-24 campaign.

VAR has also come under renewed scrutiny, with 18 errors already logged this season, matching the total for the whole of last year, despite a quarter of the campaign still to play.

Among the latest incidents, the panel ruled that Arsenal, Newcastle and Brentford should all have been awarded penalties during matches played between 14 and 16 March. However, VAR was deemed correct not to intervene because the on-field decisions did not meet the threshold for review.

A fourth error involved Leeds defender Gabriel Gudmundsson, who was shown an incorrect second yellow card at Crystal Palace. That type of incident is not currently reviewable, but will be from next season.

Despite the rising number of errors, VAR interventions have fallen from 89 to 83, while average stoppage times have dropped to 48 seconds, down from 64 last season.

GFN | Finn Entwistle