Referees’ body give shock verdict on controversial David Brooks decision after Bournemouth star did NOT see red for pulling Marc Cucurella’s hair

The panellists who review major refereeing decisions unanimously found that Bournemouth‘s David Brooks was right not to be red carded for clotheslining Chelsea‘s Marc Cucurella at Stamford Bridge last month.

Mail Sport has seen the Key Match Incidents report from match week 21 and by a score of 5-0, the five-person panel found Brooks was innocent of violent conduct as they say there was no clear evidence of a strike or hair pull on Cucurella.

Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca fumed that it was a clear red after the 2-2 draw, saying: ‘They have to explain. If they give a yellow, that means something happened. So, how can they judge that it was not dangerous? The intention was just to go against Marc Cucurella.’

The panel is made up of one Premier League representative, one PGMOL representative, and three independent former players or managers. Those anonymous panellists also felt that there was not enough evidence for the VAR Graham Scott to even recommend that referee Robert Jones visit his pitch-side monitor for a review.

It remains to be seen if the incident will be shown on the next edition of Match Officials Mic’d Up, hosted by PGMOL chief Howard Webb.

It comes as the Premier League chief football officer Tony Scholes this week said VAR was improving season by season and backed the competition’s criticised officials.

Scholes pointed to statistics which showed there had been only 13 VAR errors at this stage compared with 20 in 2023-24, and added that VAR interventions were causing an average delay of 40 seconds per match, down from 66 seconds. 

The incident happened when Chelsea defender Marc Cucurella appeared to go down after having his hair pulled by Bournemouth midfielder David Brooks

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca was visibly frustrated with the referee’s decision, saying Brook’s foul was intentional