Disallowing Fulham goal at Chelsea was wrong, admits referees’ chief Howard Webb

Howard Webb, England’s chief refereeing officer, has described the decision to disallow Josh King’s goal against Chelsea as a “misjudgment” by the match officials.

King appeared to have scored a first league goal for Fulham in Saturday’s derby at Stamford Bridge but his effort was ruled out after the referee, Robert Jones, was asked to go to the pitchside monitor after a check by the video assistant referee.

The goal was controversially chalked off because his teammate Rodrigo Muniz was adjudged to have stepped on Trevoh Chalobah’s foot while turning with the ball. Michael Salisbury was then stood down as the VAR official for Sunday’s meeting between Liverpool and Arsenal.

Webb, the chief refereeing officer at Professional Game Match Officials, told the Match Officials Mic’d Up programme: “It wasn’t controversial, it was wrong. We’ve established some principles in terms of how we officiate in the Premier League and how we use VAR. They sit around a high threshold for penalising contact, aiding the flow, rhythm and tempo of the game. We’ve also established a high bar for intervention with VAR.

“In other words, if situations are not clearly wrong and the referee has made a call on the field, that call will stand or at least should stand. That’s the message we give to all of our VARs, particularly when we come to taking away goals that are obviously a crucial moment in the game. We should only be taking goals away when the evidence is very clear that’s the only thing we can do and that’s the guidance we give to our officials.

“In this situation, that guidance wasn’t followed properly. There was a misjudgment by the officials involved in this situation about how that contact happened between Muniz and Chalobah. The officials got super-focused on that contact, without looking at the full context of how it happened.

“It happens when Muniz is in possession of the ball, controls the ball, turns naturally and brings his foot down on to Chalobah, who’s moved his foot into a space which the Fulham player has the right to put his foot into in that normal way.”