Chris Kavanagh will not officiate any Premier League matches this weekend following a string of controversial calls during the FA Cup tie between Aston Villa and Newcastle last Saturday.
Kavanagh, alongside his assistants Gary Beswick and Nick Greenhalgh, faced significant backlash for their performance during the fourth-round match held at Villa Park, which was conducted without VAR—consistent with all matches in this round.
A standout performance by Sandro Tonali, who scored twice, helped Newcastle to a 3-1 victory over ten-man Villa, despite a series of perplexing officiating decisions from Kavanagh.
Notably, the officials missed an offside call on Villa’s opening goal scored by Tammy Abraham, failed to penalize a high challenge by Villa’s Lucas Digne on Newcastle’s Jacob Murphy that warranted a potential red card, and mistakenly awarded a free-kick for a handball against Digne when the incident occurred inside the penalty area.
While Beswick has been assigned as an assistant for the upcoming match between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool on Sunday, both Kavanagh and Greenhalgh have been omitted from the weekend’s line-up.
The Professional Game Match Officials (PGMO) emphasizes the importance of accountability among referees, which explains Kavanagh’s absence this weekend.
Despite the recent criticism, he is well-respected, having been recently promoted to UEFA’s elite list of referees and frequently officiating in the Champions League.
Earlier on Monday, Wayne Rooney remarked that the officiating blunders reflected an over-dependence on VAR by referees.
He described the handball incident as “one of the worst decisions he had ever seen” while serving as a pundit for the BBC during the live broadcast of Saturday’s match.
In a later discussion on the Wayne Rooney Show podcast, he elaborated: “There seems to be an over-reliance on VAR, and unfortunately, officials have gotten accustomed to waiting for assistance rather than making calls independently.” He pointed out that the absence of VAR led to some poor on-field decisions.
Former Premier League referee Graham Scott, a guest on the podcast, contested the notion that referees are using VAR as a safety net. He asserted, “These officials are not that way inclined; they have their own methods and processes that are independent of VAR.” He explained that he has experience both with and without VAR during his career and noted that officials’ decision-making processes should remain consistent.
Moving forward, VAR will be implemented in the FA Cup beginning from the fifth round onwards.
Top referees in the Premier League are encouraged to trust their judgment during games. Notably, the Premier League has the lowest VAR intervention rate compared to other major European leagues, operating under the principle that unless a subjective call is incontrovertibly incorrect, the on-field decision should prevail.