It wasn’t just the 20 Premier League teams who were aiming to make a strong start to the new season. For PGMOL, a controversy-free start to 2023/24 was going to be critical to restoring some of their ever-decreasing reputation.
Through two weeks, however, on-field refereeing decisions and VAR’s intervention – or lack thereof – have re-emerged as nagging sideline acts to the actual football. The standard of officiating in the Premier League is once again coming under scrutiny.
Andre Onana’s minor assault on Sasa Kalajdzic which somehow went unpunished was the major gaff in gameweek one, and there were more officiating woes in gameweek two. Before David Coote’s antics on Monday night, Thomas Bramall’s decision to send off Alexis Mac Allister for a fairly innocuous challenge on Ryan Christie was the standout blunder.
Remarkably, VAR refused to offer an alternate opinion and, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, Liverpool lodged an appeal in a bid to overturn Mac Allister’s three-match ban – an appeal which was successful.
Here’s how the appeals process works in the Premier League.
First things first, clubs must lodge their appeal by 17:00 on the second business day following the incident.
Premier League clubs can appeal certain red cards on the basis of ‘wrongful dismissal’. Once the appeal has been made, the on-field decision will be reviewed by the FA via an independent regulatory commission. This commission is made up of three people who will discuss the appeal after looking over reports from the referee and the fourth official, as well as video evidence of the incident itself.
They will then decide whether to uphold or overturn the three-game ban.
However, there are times when an appeal is deemed ‘frivolous’ by the commission, and instead of overturning the three-match ban, they add another game onto the suspension. This risk means club’s don’t relentlessly appeal red card decisions.
Can yellow cards be appealed?
In the overwhelming majority of cases, only red cards can be appealed by Premier League clubs. Arsenal, for example, will not be able to appeal Takehiro Tomiyasu’s dismissal at Crystal Palace because he received two yellow cards.
The only time when a double-booking dismissal can be appealed is if it is due to mistaken identity. Such instances, though, especially in the modern-day, almost never occur.
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