David Coote
The independent Key Match Incidents panel has reviewed 22 of those matches and confirmed 3 errors in them. Everything below is a count: RefCard publishes errors, not an accuracy percentage, because no source publishes the denominator such a figure would need.
Season by season
| Season | Matches | Fouls/game | Yellows/game | Reds/game | Penalties | Confirmed errors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 6 | 24.0 | 5.17 | 0.00 | 1 | 0 |
| 2023-24 | 16 | 24.7 | 5.31 | 0.19 | 5 | 3 |
| 2022-23 | 21 | 23.4 | 3.67 | 0.14 | —‡ | — |
| 2021-22 | 20 | 23.8 | 4.50 | 0.10 | —‡ | — |
| 2020-21 | 21 | 23.9 | 3.10 | 0.14 | —‡ | — |
| 2019-20 | 16 | 21.7 | 3.06 | 0.12 | —‡ | — |
| 2018-19 | 11 | 23.0 | 3.18 | 0.00 | —‡ | — |
| 2017-18 | 1 | 21.0 | 4.00 | 0.00 | —‡ | — |
Confirmed errors are only available from 2023-24, when the Key Match Incidents panel began. Earlier seasons show the disciplinary record only. ‡ Penalties are recorded from 2023-24 onward; a dash means the figure was never collected for that season, not that none were given.
Cards and fouls
The career average is 3.89 yellow cards a game, against a league median of 3.67 for rated referees, on 23.5 fouls a game.
Added time
7.5 minutes of second-half added time on average, against a league median of 7.2. A model of each match's substitutions, cards and goals expects 7.4 from these fixtures — about what those stoppages predict.
Added time is captured from 2024-25 onward, over the 4 matches where we hold it — a shorter window than the figures above.
Club by club
Every club refereed at least three times, with that club's own record in those matches and the cards it took.
| Club | Matches | W–D–L | Yellows | Per game |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Everton | 15 | 8–4–3 | 24 | 1.60 |
| Aston Villa | 14 | 9–2–3 | 33 | 2.36 |
| West Ham | 13 | 3–5–5 | 21 | 1.62 |
| Leicester | 12 | 7–2–3 | 11 | 0.92 |
| Brighton | 12 | 5–1–6 | 27 | 2.25 |
| Wolves | 12 | 5–3–4 | 24 | 2.00 |
| Chelsea | 12 | 6–2–4 | 30 | 2.50 |
| Newcastle | 11 | 4–2–5 | 21 | 1.91 |
| Burnley | 11 | 3–2–6 | 15 | 1.36 |
| Tottenham | 11 | 6–2–3 | 24 | 2.18 |
| Bournemouth | 10 | 2–3–5 | 22 | 2.20 |
| Crystal Palace | 10 | 2–2–6 | 18 | 1.80 |
| Arsenal | 10 | 5–2–3 | 17 | 1.70 |
| Fulham | 9 | 3–1–5 | 17 | 1.89 |
| Leeds | 9 | 2–2–5 | 20 | 2.22 |
| Sheffield Utd | 8 | 1–3–4 | 16 | 2.00 |
| Southampton | 8 | 4–1–3 | 25 | 3.12 |
| Manchester United | 6 | 3–2–1 | 12 | 2.00 |
| Manchester City | 6 | 6–0–0 | 2 | 0.33 |
| Brentford | 6 | 0–2–4 | 15 | 2.50 |
| West Brom | 4 | 2–0–2 | 6 | 1.50 |
| Huddersfield | 3 | 1–0–2 | 6 | 2.00 |
| Watford | 3 | 0–2–1 | 11 | 3.67 |
| Norwich | 3 | 0–0–3 | 7 | 2.33 |
| Liverpool | 3 | 2–1–0 | 6 | 2.00 |
| Luton | 3 | 0–0–3 | 6 | 2.00 |
The W–D–L is the club's. Nothing here is evidence of bias — a difference this size is what chance looks like. See how that was measured.
Panel-confirmed errors
- 2024-25 · Bournemouth v Newcastle · 90' — VAR intervened wrongly; The panel were unanimous in agreeing that the goal was correctly awarded on-field, and that there was no conclusive evidence readily available of an accidental handball by the attacker, that would be required for the VAR to intervene.
- 2024-25 · West Ham v Manchester United · 90' — VAR intervened wrongly; A collision between two players challenging for a loose ball, the referee is in a great position and decides to play on. The panel were unanimous in their support of the referee's original call of no penalty.