Chelsea should not have been awarded VAR penalty at Crystal Palace, panel says

Chelsea should not have been awarded a penalty in their 3-1 win over Crystal Palace last month, when Joao Pedro's goal-bound shot was blocked by Jaydee Canvot’s arm.

The independent Key Match Incident Panel reviews every game and is made up of five people - three former players and coaches, and one official each from the PGMO and the Premier League.

In this instance, they decided unanimously that the award of a penalty was wrong.

Chelsea were 2-0 up just before the hour mark at Selhurst Park when referee Darren England deemed that Pedro's shot, when it struck the Palace defender, was not handball, and he allowed play to continue. But then the VAR Matt Donohue called England for an on-field review, which lasted almost two minutes.

Finally, Darren England overturned his original decision and awarded a penalty, which Enzo Fernandes scored to make it 3-0.

The KMI Panel has now concluded that the original on-field decision was correct, and that the VAR should not have intervened to recommend a penalty be awarded.

There were two reasons for this. Firstly, Canvot was not making his body unnaturally bigger, and his arm was not in an unnatural position. Secondly, the panel spotted a small deflection off Canvot's hip before the ball struck his arm, which offered further mitigation.

A very similar incident happened on Saturday, when Brentford were awarded a penalty for a Jacob Murphy handball. Again, Murphy's arm was close to his body and blocked a goal-bound shot from Mathias Jensen. Again, it was non-deliberate from Murphy, who didn't move his arm towards the ball. But the on-field referee, Andy Madley, awarded a penalty and the VAR saw no reason to intervene.

Was Murphy's arm further away from his body, compared to Canvot, thereby making his body unnaturally bigger? Probably. And there was no deflection onto the arm. So, maybe the Brentford vs Newcastle incident was 'more' of a penalty than the Chelsea v Palace one.

'Handball a problematic and subjective refereeing decision'

The fact that we are using a phrase like 'more of a penalty' hits at the very heart of the issue. Handball is a problematic and subjective refereeing decision, where there is a sliding scale between what is interpreted as a penalty, and what is not.

It is one of the most difficult to interpret - for match officials and for supporters. That is partly because the interpretation of what is handball and what is not, differs depending on the competition.

For UEFA matches, referees are told there is an "expectation" that a penalty should be awarded when the ball strikes a defender's arm. In the Premier League, more discretion is given to the match officials, so that they can apply the usual parameters when considering a handball: has it struck the arm directly or is there any deflection? Is the defender's arm in a natural position, or are they making their body bigger with the arm away from the body? Does the defender move their arm towards the ball?

At the start of this Premier League season, the PGMO told all supporters they would take a "less is more" approach to handball, where greater leniency would be applied to non-deliberate handball. That's what the club's and fans wanted, was the overriding feeling.

The handball law has changed hugely since the original rules were drawn up more than 150 years ago. The first recognised laws of football in 1863 allowed players to catch the ball - so long as it was a "fair catch" and the ball hadn't bounced - at this stage of the game's evolution, the lines were blurred between football and "rugby football". By 1870, any handling of the ball was banned, until a year later, when the specific position of goalkeeper was introduced - they were now, in 1871, the only player allowed to touch the ball with their hands, so long as they were in their own half.

Not until 1912 did the laws change to restrict goalkeepers to handling the ball inside their own "penalty area".

Any changes to the rules regarding handball can only be brought about once a year, by the International Football Association Board. But the interpretation of the handball rules have been tweaked regularly, to try to make them more palatable to clubs and fans. Inevitably, they have become more complex.

The current IFAB handball law is explained in 263 words. The definition of what the "arm" is has been clarified in the PL handbook, stating that "the upper boundary of the arm is in line with the bottom of the armpit."