Chris Kavanagh is absent from the list of Premier League referees appointed for this weekend's fixtures, following a series of contentious decisions during last Saturday's FA Cup tie between Aston Villa and Newcastle.
Kavanagh and his assistants, Gary Beswick and Nick Greenhalgh, drew significant criticism for their performance at Villa Park, where the match proceeded without the aid of VAR, as was standard for that round.
Among the key errors, they failed to identify Tammy Abraham as offside for Villa’s opening goal.
Furthermore, a shin-high challenge by Villa full-back Lucas Digne on Newcastle’s Jacob Murphy, which many believed warranted a straight red card, went unpunished.
The officiating team also awarded a free-kick for a handball by Digne, despite the incident clearly occurring inside the penalty area.
While Beswick has been named as an assistant for Sunday’s Nottingham Forest v Liverpool match, Kavanagh and Greenhalgh do not feature in any appointments.
The Professional Game Match Officials (PGMO) bases its selections on various factors, including post-match performance assessments conducted by an independent key match incidents (KMI) panel, ensuring accountability for officials.
Despite this recent omission, Kavanagh is widely respected within the sport, having recently been promoted to UEFA’s elite list of referees and regularly overseeing Champions League fixtures.
Earlier on Monday, Wayne Rooney said he believed the errors made were an indication of an over-reliance on VAR by officials.
Rooney described the handball call as “one of the worst decisions he had ever seen”, in his role as one of the BBC’s pundits for the live broadcast of the match on Saturday evening.
Speaking on the Wayne Rooney Show podcast subsequently, he added: “I think there’s over-reliance on VAR.
“And unfortunately, now the officials are used to that and where they’ve been getting their help and it’s been getting them out of jail at times or they’re waiting for that to make the decision.
“With no VAR they have to make the decision and they’re probably used to keeping the flag down and that’s what’s cost the decisions yesterday.”
Former Premier League referee Graham Scott, who was a guest on the podcast, said he did not think it was fair to say referees were hiding behind VAR.
“Obviously I work with them closely and I know these guys and they’re not like that,” he said.
“It’s not how their minds work, not how their processes work. I spent half my career with VAR and half without it, the other way around of course, without it first.
“And then when I was in the Premier League I was still dropping into the Championship quite often. So you’re in and out, in and out. And your processes essentially stay the same.”
VAR will be used in the FA Cup from the fifth round onwards.
Top-flight referees are very much encouraged to back themselves in their on-field decisions.
The Premier League has the lowest VAR intervention rate of any major European competition and works on the principle that unless a subjective decision is clearly and obviously wrong, the referee’s call on-field should stand.
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