{"id":458690,"date":"2026-02-09T19:15:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T19:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/458690\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T19:15:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T19:15:49","slug":"chelsea-var-penalty-at-crystal-palace-a-mistake-panel-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/458690\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea VAR penalty at Crystal Palace a mistake, panel says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chelsea should not have been awarded a penalty for handball in their 3-1 win<\/a> at Crystal Palace<\/a> last month, the Premier League’s Key Match Incidents (KMI) Panel has said.<\/p>\n

With Chelsea leading 2-0, Palace defender Jaydee Canvot blocked Joao Pedro’s goal-bound shot with his arm.<\/p>\n

Referee Darren England allowed play to continue but was sent to the pitchside monitor by the video assistant referee (VAR), Matt Donohue.<\/p>\n

England watched replays on the screen for almost two minutes, and BBC Sport understands he took a lot of persuading<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The five members of the KMI Panel unanimously voted that the original on-field decision was correct and it was a mistake for the VAR to intervene.<\/p>\n

It can be a confusing area of law.<\/p>\n

The Ifab expressly says that an arm stopping the ball from entering the goal should not automatically be a penalty. There has to be a handball offence.<\/p>\n

Yet in its briefings, Uefa has told referees it always expects a spot-kick.<\/p>\n

In the Premier League, officials are told to have some discretion over arm position.<\/p>\n

The KMI Panel felt the VAR intervention was incorrect because Canvot “is not making his body unnaturally bigger” and that there was a “small deflection off the hip”.<\/p>\n

It added: “The VAR intervention and final outcome after the on-field review, which resulted in a penalty and yellow card for a non-deliberate handball offence that denied an obvious goal, was considered to be incorrect.”<\/p>\n

Yet on Saturday, Newcastle<\/a> conceded a penalty against Brentford,<\/a> given on-field by referee Andy Madley, for handball by Jacob Murphy.<\/p>\n

It was very similar in nature. A shot on target, stopped by an arm quite close to the body.<\/p>\n

However, the Brentford penalty is likely to be judged to be a correct decision.<\/p>\n

The Murphy handball had no deflection on to the arm, he was facing the shot and appeared to move his arm into the path of the ball in a non-deliberate way. <\/p>\n

You can understand why fans might struggle to see the difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chelsea should not have been awarded a penalty for handball in their 3-1 win at Crystal Palace last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-458690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}