Was Chelsea's penalty at Crystal Palace a VAR error?

It was a strange weekend for referee Darren England.

On Saturday, Farai Hallam, in charge of his first Premier League game, rejected England's advice as the video assistant referee (VAR) and did not award a penalty to Manchester City for handball.

On Sunday, England's role was reversed in Chelsea's 3-1 win at Crystal Palace. This time he was the referee sent to the pitchside monitor to decide on a potential handball spot-kick.

Palace defender Jaydee Canvot had blocked Joao Pedro's goal-bound shot with his arm, which was seemingly in a natural position down by his side.

England watched replays on the screen for almost two minutes, and BBC Sport understands he took a lot of persuading.

The VAR was Matt Donohue, who has refereed only four top-flight games but is on duty at Stockley Park most weekends.

Donohue insisted it should be a penalty because the arm had stopped a goal. Eventually, England concurred and awarded the spot-kick.

The International Football Association Board (Ifab) has previously clarified that, in this kind of scenario, it is not automatically a penalty.

On its Football Rules website, external, it asks the question: "A player prevents the ball from going into their own goal with their hand/arm but does not deliberately handle the ball and does not make their body unnaturally bigger?"

The answer is: "This is not a handball."

Much of the confusion surrounds a law change in 2024. Ifab modified the wording on the offence of denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity (which Ifab also refers to by the acronym Dogso).

The law now reads: "Where a player denies the opposing team a goal or an obvious goalscoring opportunity by committing a non-deliberate handball offence and the referee awards a penalty kick, the offender is cautioned."

And here is the key point. It has to be an "offence" - in other words making the body unnaturally bigger.

It has incorrectly been interpreted that all handballs which stop a goal are a penalty and a yellow card. The change to the law was only from red card to yellow card.

First it has to be a handball offence, and then you consider the merits of Dogso.

The update was made to bring handball offences into line with foul challenges and double jeopardy.

So a genuine attempt to play the ball or non-deliberate handball where the body is made bigger are a caution.

It is true there is less flexibility about arm position when the ball is going towards goal.

Take the handball claim against Wolves defender Yerson Mosquera in his side's 2-0 loss at Manchester City.

While Hallam turned the review down, it would be more likely to be given if the defender had been on the goalline because his arm was away from his body.

This was not the case with Canvot. The Palace player had his arm by his side and the ball deflected up off his hip.

This would not be considered a handball offence anywhere else on the pitch.

It seems likely the Premier League's Key Match Incidents (KMI) panel may judge this as a mistake.

It does not make logical sense that there should be a different outcome if Canvot had been stood three yards to his right, not in front of the goal. Or if there was a team-mate or the goalkeeper behind him.

"It's not that difficult," Danny Murphy said on Match of the Day. "Canvot's arm is not in an unnatural position, it's right beside him.

"It's an easy decision, I don't really know why VAR have even got involved, and they've ended up making the wrong decision.

"Whether they're confused in terms of the law, I don't know, but they've made a mistake."

Former Premier League official Darren Cann agreed, telling BBC Sport: "No penalty in my opinion as Canvot neither deliberately handled the ball or had his arm in an unnatural position."

Wayne Rooney added that "everyone's getting fed up" with VAR errors.

In November, Newcastle's Harvey Barnes was defending a corner and stood on the goalline. The delivery curled into the goal area and hit Barnes on the arm, which was alongside his body.

There was no VAR intervention for a penalty, which the KMI panel supported 5-0.

It is the second time this season Palace have suffered from a questionable VAR intervention against Chelsea.

In August, Eberechi Eze had a goal disallowed after the VAR ruled Marc Guehi was too close to the wall on a free-kick. It is the only time a goal has been ruled out for this in the Premier League.

Arsenal were trailing Manchester United 2-1 in the 71st minute at Emirates Stadium when the hosts had a claim for a handball penalty against Harry Maguire.

There is an exemption against handball when a player is placing his arm to the floor to support the body.

This is the case even if the arm is not grounded and lands on top of the ball.

Maguire was already falling with his arm out before Mikel Merino released the shot that struck the England centre-half's hand.

It is not an absolute defence, however. A defender could be judged to have deliberately put their arm into the path of a shot.

Twice players have wrongly escaped giving away a VAR penalty in these circumstances.

Tomas Soucek did so for West Ham against Chelsea in February 2023, while Martin Odegaard should have conceded a spot-kick for Arsenal at Liverpool in December 2023.

Both players made a deliberate movement to stop or knock the ball - but that was not the case with Maguire.