Premier League to publish Key Match Incidents Panel verdicts on refereeing and VAR decisions
The Premier League announced on 18 August 2026 that, for the first time this season, it will publish the full judgements made by its Key Match Incidents Panel on referee and VAR decisions in Premier League matches. The move is one of three measures introduced to increase transparency around officiating.
The measures, brought in by the Premier League and Pro Ref, include publishing the KMI Panel's full judgements, releasing selected direct explanations from officials, and expanding the use of RefCam to include audio of a referee speaking to players. The five members of the Key Match Incidents Panel have met since the 2022-23 season, but until now the full written judgements have been kept private, with clubs sometimes leaking the information. Every major incident is assessed and voted on by the panel, which provides feedback to clubs and match officials.
Selected direct quotes from the referee and/or the video assistant referee will be published on the Premier League's Match Centre account on X, on the Premier League website and in the Premier League app, with the league saying the aim is to provide the rationale behind decisions. Previously, the Match Centre account published a general summary of incidents rather than the real-time explanations and thought processes of officials; the new material will include a referee's description of why they made a decision or the VAR's direct reasoning for why they did not intervene.
The expansion of RefCam will allow broadcast of audio between the referee and players for the first time, but this audio will not be transmitted live and will not include conversations between the referee and the VAR. The Premier League said RefCam audio will be used in-game one or two times in each round of fixtures.
The KMI Panel meets every week to dissect decisions from goals to penalties to red cards and has five members: three former players and coaches, plus one representative each from the Premier League and the referees' body Pro Ref. The panel first reviews the on-field referee team and then the VAR; because the VAR operates to a higher threshold described as "clear and obvious", there are occasions when the panel will conclude the referee was wrong but the VAR was correct not to intervene.
The panel also examines incidents that are not reviewable by VAR, such as missed second yellow cards, and determines whether a decision was correct by simple majority. The KMI Panel was created by Premier League clubs in 2022 to remove control of performance statistics from the refereeing body; its assessments are used to compile comments explaining reasoning and to calculate performance-related payments to referees at the end of each season.
Last season's judgements, seen by BBC Sport, recorded 25 VAR errors, up from 18 in the 2024-25 campaign; those figures compared with 31 errors in 2023-24 and 38 in 2022-23. The published results will include comments from the panel members to explain their decisions.
The Premier League said it believes publishing the KMI Panel's documents will give full transparency about the evaluation of decisions and will continue discussions with the International Football Association Board about permitting more VAR communication to be shared with the public.
