The Premier League’s Key Match Incidents panel has ruled that Sunderland should not have been awarded a penalty against Arsenal. The five-person panel unanimously rejected the on-field call from 12 September, backing Mikel Arteta’s complaint while still standing by the VAR decision not to intervene. David Raya saved Enzo Le Fee’s spot-kick in the game, and Arsenal went on to win 2-0.

The panel’s ruling on the penalty

Arteta had already made his view clear after the match. Speaking to independent.co.uk, he said: “(The decision) is not acceptable. I watched it 20 times and I cannot find a way to understand how they’d think to give a penalty in that situation or the way the VAR has to intervene.”

The panel’s explanation backed that complaint. It said: “Although it was a very untidy challenge in which Konsa initially had arms around Ballard, Ballard engages in a holding action which pulls Konsa onto him so they both fall to the floor.”

That leaves Daniel Ballard and Ezri Konsa at the centre of the incident, with the panel concluding the referee’s penalty call was wrong.

Why VAR still kept the decision on the day

The split comes on the VAR threshold, not on whether the referee made a mistake. The panel concluded that, although the referee should not have awarded the penalty, the error did not meet the bar for a clear and obvious intervention.

As the Standard reported, the panel said: “In this instance, the panel concluded that, although the referee made an error and should not have awarded a penalty kick, the decision did not meet the threshold for a clear and obvious error.” It added: “Therefore, it was not deemed a situation in which the VAR should have intervened.”

That 3-2 division explains why the call stood in real time, even though the five-person panel was unanimous on the penalty itself. Arsenal are 6th in the Premier League standings and Sunderland are 19th, which only adds to the pressure around marginal calls like this one.

The clean takeaway is simple: the panel says the penalty should not have been given, but it also says the VAR team were not required to overturn it. Arsenal still have the 2-0 result, and this ruling now gives Arteta's complaint official backing.

Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 3 outlets. How we work →