The 2023-24 Premier League season has been marred by a number of controversial refereeing decisions, the latest of which came in the high-profile Manchester City vs Tottenham Hotspur game, in which the referee, Simon Hooper, stopped the game for a foul on Man City's Erling Haaland when Jack Grealish had a clear advantage.
In this context, here we take a look at some of the most controversial refereeing decisions in the Premier League in the ongoing season:
1. October 28, 2023: Wolves 2-2 Newcastle
Referee Anthony Taylor awarded Newcastle a penalty right at half-time, which helped them come away with a point from this encounter. However, replay showed Hwang Hee-chan's kick on Callum Wilson was a rather soft one.
Wolves manager Gary O’Neil later said, "It was a terrible on-field decision, and terrible that VAR didn’t intervene, so I thought they got it badly wrong."
2. August 14, 2023: Manchester United 1-0 Wolves
This is where the series of apologies by the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) for refereeing decisions began. Man United goalkeeper Andre Onana slammed into Wolves' Sasa Kalajdzic, which would've been a penalty but all appeals by the Wolves' players were ruled out by referee Simon Hooper.
3. September 30, 2023: Tottenham 2-1 Liverpool
In one of the most controversial decisions of VAR in recent years, this heated match in which Liverpool were already down by one man, saw a legal goal by Luis Diaz being disallowed by the on-field referee—Simon Hooper, again. VAR did not step in to correct the decision as well. The situation worsened for Liverpool when they lost another player at the fag end of the match, which led to Tottenham scoring a late winner.
4. November 4, 2023: Newcastle 1-0 Arsenal
Another controversial game of the season was this fixture between Arsenal and Newcastle, which had left Arteta fuming in the post-match conference.
Among the many disputes in the match, the most contentious was Anthony Gordon's goal.
The referee and VAR had to decide on three different calls: whether Gordon was offside, whether Joelinton had fouled Gabriel Magalhaes, and whether the ball had gone out of play. To Arteta's dismay, the latter was rather simple, but for the first two, there wasn't much clarity. At the end of it all, Newcastle's goal stood, leaving the Arsenal manager fuming.
5. November 28, 2023: Fulham 3-2 Wolves
Referee Michael Salisbury had acknowledged that he had erred in awarding a penalty to the Cottagers following a challenge by Nelson Semedo on Tom Cairney in the penalty area. It was just one of several injustices Wolves have had to deal with this season.
Tim Ream also appeared lucky to escape a second yellow card for pushing Hwang, and Carlos Vinicius may also have been sent off for violent behavior after his collision with Max Kilman.