KMI Panel Backs Decision to Deny Liverpool Penalty at Ipswich

The Premier League’s Key Match Incidents Panel has thrown its weight behind the decision not to award Liverpool a penalty in their trip to Ipswich Town earlier this month.

Liverpool were 2-0 up and cruising towards half-time when the flashpoint arrived. Cody Gakpo laid the ball off on the edge of the area and, in came Abdul Fatawu with a sliding challenge. Fatawu made the block but also caught Gakpo as the forward moved the ball away, sending him to ground right on the line of the box.

Referee Darren England waved play on. No whistle, no hesitation.

Upstairs, VAR Nick Hopton took a look and chose not to send England to the monitor. No on-field review, no penalty, and the game moved on.

That sequence has now been examined by the KMI Panel, and the independent group has backed the officials in emphatic fashion. By a 4-1 margin, the panel ruled it should not have been a spot-kick. On the question of whether VAR should have intervened, the vote was unanimous: 5-0 against a review.

In their explanation, the panel described it as “an unusual situation where some contact is made by Fatawu on Gakpo after the ball is laid off.” The key, they felt, lay in the degree of that contact.

Their majority view was clear: the challenge did not meet the “high threshold” required for a foul in that area. And on the VAR question, there was no split at all. The panel agreed it was not a “clear and obvious error” and therefore not an incident that should drag the referee to the screen.

On a day when Liverpool’s scoreline drew the headlines, the panel’s verdict underlines something else: the bar for VAR intervention on penalty calls remains set deliberately high.