The Premier League publishes provisions for reviewing referees' decisions and VAR

This season, for the first time, the Key Match Incidents Panel's full rulings on referee and VAR decisions will be made available to fans.

This is one of three measures adopted by the English Premier League to enhance transparency, in addition to publishing direct explanations of the referees’ decisions, and broadcasting footage from the referee’s camera (RefCam) that includes audio recordings of his conversations with the players.

The five-member committee has been meeting since the 2022/2023 season, but its full provisions were kept confidential, although there was a tendency among some clubs to leak this information.

Each major incident is assessed and voted on, with feedback provided to clubs and referees. The English Premier League believes that publishing these documents will give the public complete transparency regarding the mechanism for evaluating arbitration decisions.

Selected excerpts from the direct statements of the referee and/or the video assistant referee will also be published via the Match Center account on the X platform, in addition to the English Premier League website and its official application, with the aim of clarifying the justifications on which the decisions were based.

Previously, the account merely published a general summary of the incident instead of presenting immediate explanations and the way the referees thought while making the decision. This will include the referee explaining the reasons that led him to make a certain decision, or the video assistant referee explaining the reasons for not intervening in a situation.

The expansion of the use of the referee camera (RefCam) will allow for the first time to broadcast audio clips of dialogues that take place between the referee and the players. This broadcast will not be live, nor will it include any part of the conversations between the referee and the video assistant referee, but it will be used once or twice during each round of league matches.

The Premier League and the Professional Referees' Association are seeking to take steps to increase transparency around refereeing decisions, despite continued restrictions resulting from the International Football Association Board's (IFAB) refusal to allow live broadcast of VAR discussions. The Premier League is set to continue discussions with the International Football Association Board about allowing more VAR-related communications to be shared with the public.

The KMI Panel meets weekly to review and analyze every important refereeing decision, from goals and penalties to sending-offs. The committee consists of five members: three former players and coaches, in addition to one representative from the English Premier League and another representative from the professional referees body.

The English Premier League clubs established this committee in 2022 with the aim of removing the responsibility for evaluating the statistical performance of referees from the arbitration body itself. The committee does not aim to evaluate each case in the way fans or coaches might view it, but rather takes into account the Laws of the Game and, more importantly, the way the Premier League expects its matches to be officiated.

For this reason, the committee's list of errors is not as extensive as fans might expect. The committee first begins by reviewing the decision of the refereeing crew on the field, and then moves on to evaluate the decision of the video assistant referee. Since VAR operates according to a more stringent standard of “clear and obvious error,” there are cases in which the committee may see that the arena referee made a mistake in his decision, but at the same time it considers that the video referee was right not to intervene. The committee also looks into cases that VAR cannot review, such as second yellow cards that were not awarded.