Referee has the right to send off Declan Rice – Premier League Panel

The Premier League’s Key Incidents Independent Panel (KMI) has unanimously backed referee Chris Kavanagh’s decision to send off Declan Rice in Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with Brighton & Hove Albion on 31 August.

Rice was already on a caution when he got into an altercation with Joël Veltman and conceded a free kick. As Veltman stepped forward to kick the ball, Rice kicked it out of bounds, and Kavanagh showed the Arsenal midfielder a second yellow card for delaying the restart.

The findings, seen by ESPN, state that “Rice knows what he’s doing, it’s a gentle touch, but when the referee sees it, he has no choice.”

The KMI panel has five members, comprising three former players and/or coaches, plus a representative from the Premier League and PGMOL. It was established at the start of the 2022-23 season to provide an independent assessment of decision-making rather than relying on the opinions of the PGMOL or the clubs themselves. The judgement aims to provide an impartial assessment of all key incidents of the match, but gives weight to the referee’s decision in subjective situations, taking into account the laws of the game and the Premier League’s interpretation.

There was “unanimous agreement” among the five on the KMI panel “that Rice’s actions were clear, deliberate and impactful. Therefore, the referee was right to send off Rice for a second caution for delaying the restart.”

The panel also backed referee Jarred Gillett’s decision not to show a second yellow card to Crystal Palace midfielder Will Hughes at Chelsea on 1 September. Hughes had pulled down Cole Palmer on the edge of the box, but in a split 3–2 vote, the panel said “it is a holding offence but does not appear to be preventing a promising attack due to the Palace defender positioned immediately in front of Palmer”.

So far this season, there has been little real controversy in the Premier League, with only one VAR decision deemed incorrect – when Tim Robinson intervened to disallow Dango Ouattara’s injury-time winner for handball in AFC Bournemouth’s game against Newcastle United on August 25.

While there were no other VAR errors, the panel ruled that there were two penalty situations that were wrong on the pitch but did not meet the threshold of a clear and obvious error for intervention: referee Tony Harrington should not have awarded a penalty to West Ham United against Aston Villa, while Ipswich Town should have been awarded a penalty against Manchester City.

In 84 key match incidents reviewed by VAR in the first three rounds, only nine votes out of a total of 420 indicated that the video assistant referee made a mistake – and five of those resulted in the unanimous judgement that Bournemouth’s goal should have been allowed.