Premier League's Key Match Incident panel deliver verdict on controversial handball calls in Man City v Sunderland

The Premier League's Key Match Incident Panel narrowly backed the decision not to award a penalty to Sunderland for a handball during their recent 5-3 defeat to Manchester City.

Sunderland were left aggrieved early in the second half when Elliot Anderson handled the ball in his own box as he challenged Enzo Le Fée, denying the Black Cats the opportunity to go level at 3-3 in the game. To add insult to injury, Antoine Semenyo scored his second and City's fourth just moments later.

The five-person independent panel is made up of three former players or coaches, one representative from ProRef and one from the Premier League. They meet each week to analyse significant decisions made in Premier League games and feed back to the game's refereeing body on how they feel top-tier games should be officiated.

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On this occasion, the panel was split when assessing Rob Jones and the VAR's ruling that Anderson's action was accidental rather than deliberate. Three of the panel agreed, but two members felt that Anderson's second action was deliberate. One of the two nevertheless agreed that the error was not clear and obvious and therefore did not warrant an intervention from VAR.

A statement from the panel reads: "The referee's call of no penalty for a potential handball offence against Anderson was supported, 3:2. Both players were engaged and the ball was bouncing at close proximity after deflecting off Le Fee. Two panellists felt that there was a deliberate secondary movement of the arm from Anderson that was a handball offence."

The panel backed the decision to award Manchester City's third goal by a 4-1 verdict, despite the ball striking the arm of Marc Guehi. The panel ruled that it was not a deliberate action and as he was not the goal scorer, it was correct not to rule out Antoine Semenyo's strike or for the referee to intervene.

The statement reads: "The referee's call to award the goal was supported, 4:1. The ball did strike the arm of Guehi but it was not deliberate and he was not the goalscorer."

Manchester City have been found guilty of all charges related to breaches of Premier League financial rules between 2009-10 and 2017-18 by an independent commission, the league said on Tuesday evening.

The Premier League said the independent commission found City arranged ‘sham’ commercial deals with a number of its sponsors during the period, which were part of a disguised funding scheme, whereby those companies were only required to pay a portion of the relevant sponsorship fees. The commission found that the remainder was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club.

The league said that now the charges have been proved, the issue of sanction will be addressed separately in a further hearing with the independent commission. Manchester City say they will now pursue an appeal “on the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe.”