{"id":546174,"date":"2026-03-17T12:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T12:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/546174\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T12:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T12:28:08","slug":"var-error-cost-brighton-a-penalty-against-arsenal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/546174\/","title":{"rendered":"VAR error cost Brighton a penalty against Arsenal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brighton<\/a> should have been awarded a penalty in their 1-0 loss<\/a> at home to Arsenal<\/a> on 4 March, the Premier League’s Key Match Incidents (KMI) Panel has said.<\/p>\n

It is the third time this season Arsenal<\/a> have wrongly escaped a VAR penalty in a game they have won by one goal.<\/p>\n

The Seagulls were trailing to Bukayo Saka’s ninth-minute goal when they pushed forward in the third minute of first-half stoppage time. <\/p>\n

After a cross was delivered from the left, Brighton<\/a> midfielder Mats Wieffer tried to run into the box towards the flight of the ball but was hauled to the ground by Gabriel Martinelli.<\/p>\n

Referee Chris Kavanagh allowed play to continue and it was cleared by the video assistant referee (VAR), Michael Salisbury.<\/p>\n

Fabian Hurzeler complained to fourth official David Webb and the Brighton<\/a> boss ended up exchanging words with Mikel Arteta on the touchline.<\/p>\n

The Premier League Match Centre wrote on X that the VAR “deemed there was no clear and obvious error”.<\/p>\n

But the KMI Panel voted 4:1 that a spot-kick should have been awarded on the field, and 3:2 that it was a missed VAR intervention.<\/p>\n

The ruling said: “Martinelli is not looking at the ball, holds Weiffer into the area and prevents the Brighton<\/a> player from challenging for the ball.”<\/p>\n

Earlier this month the KMI Panel voted 4:1 that Chelsea<\/a> should have been awarded a penalty against the Gunners for handball by Declan Rice.<\/p>\n

Arsenal<\/a> led 1-0 in the 45th minute when Rice moved his arm to deflect the ball following a corner. <\/p>\n

Chelsea<\/a> did score two minutes later through a Piero Hincapie handball, but went on to lose 2-1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In December, Everton should have been awarded a penalty<\/a> for William Saliba’s challenge on Thierno Barry. The VAR was Michael Salisbury for that match, too.<\/p>\n

There have now been 18 VAR errors logged this season, matching the total for the entire 2024-25 campaign.<\/p>\n

From this same gameweek, Leeds United<\/a> should have been given a penalty in their 1-0 loss at home to Sunderland<\/a> for Luke O’Nien’s holding offence on Pascal Struijk. <\/p>\n

The Gunners have had no VAR mistakes against them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brighton should have been awarded a penalty in their 1-0 loss at home to Arsenal on 4 March,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-546174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}