Controversy has arrived at a particularly sensitive moment in the Premier League title race, with the league’s own Key Match Incidents Panel now confirming that Arsenal have benefited from three separate incorrect VAR rulings this season, including one that directly affected the outcome of a game against Brighton earlier this month.
The most recent ruling centres on a first-half incident in Arsenal’s 1-0 win at the Amex on March 4. With the game still goalless, Brighton midfielder Mats Wieffer was pulled to the ground inside the penalty area by Gabriel Martinelli, an incident clear enough to the naked eye that the Brighton players immediately appealed. Referee Chris Kavanagh waved play on, and VAR operative Michael Salisbury declined to intervene.
The KMI Panel subsequently voted 4-1 that a penalty should have been awarded and 3-2 that it represented a missed VAR intervention, meaning Salisbury should have directed the referee to the pitchside monitor.
The panel’s summary was pointed: “Martinelli is not looking at the ball, holds Wieffer into the area and prevents the Brighton player from challenging for the ball.” Arsenal went on to win 1-0 with a Bukayo Saka goal in the ninth minute, meaning the denied penalty arrived when the score was still level and could realistically have altered the result.
Salisbury was also the VAR for an earlier ruling in December that went Arsenal’s way, when a potential penalty for Everton was waved off following a challenge from William Saliba on striker Thierno Barry. The KMI Panel ruled that one was also an error. Earlier this month, a third decision went in the Gunners’ favour when Declan Rice appeared to deliberately use his arm to clear the ball in Chelsea’s penalty area during a 2-1 Arsenal win, yet no handball was given. The panel voted that a penalty should have been awarded.
Crucially, Arsenal have had zero VAR errors go against them across the entire campaign. That is not an accusation of conspiracy but it is a statistical asymmetry significant enough to prompt legitimate scrutiny, particularly when the panel itself is confirming the errors retrospectively.
The context matters enormously here. Arsenal sit nine points clear at the top of the table. Whether the denied Brighton penalty would have changed the final scoreline is impossible to say with certainty, but the fact remains that Arsenal dropped no points in that fixture and a legitimate scoring opportunity was denied to the opposition as a direct result of officiating errors. At least two of those three incorrect rulings came in games Arsenal won by a single goal.
The total number of VAR errors across the current season has now reached 18 with eight rounds still to play, tying the figure from the entire previous campaign. PGMOL, the body responsible for match officials, faces renewed pressure to address both the quality of its in-game decisions and the transparency of its post-match communication with clubs.