Premier League issue bizarre statement on incident in West Ham 2-1 Everton

Everton felt they should have been awarded a penalty before Callum Wilson snatched all three points for West Ham, after Mateus Fernandes appeared to swat the ball away from Thierno Barry inside the box.

The Everton number 11 was backing into the Portugal international while shielding the ball, only for West Ham’s number 18 to knock it out for a corner with his hand. Bizarrely, despite a VAR review, West Ham escaped punishment—much to the disbelief of David Moyes.

So why wasn’t it a spot kick? The Premier League Match Centre has since released a statement explaining why Fernandes—a player Everton are reportedly keen to sign—was not penalized.

Premier League says Fernandes handled the ball “accidentally”

The official Premier League account posted on X shortly after the incident: “The referee’s call of no penalty was checked and confirmed by VAR—with it deemed that Fernandes accidentally handled the ball while grappling with an opponent.”

How does that make any sense?

Presumably, very few players ever deliberately handle the ball when a handball offense is called. Most such incidents are accidental. So excusing Fernandes on the grounds that he didn’t mean to touch the ball seems illogical.

To make matters worse, West Ham raced up the other end and snatched all three points—leaving Moyes absolutely furious with the decision. The Scotsman was already angry with officials after Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was denied a penalty in the Merseyside derby following a nudge from Curtis Jones.

Those two 2–1 defeats—to Liverpool and now West Ham—have made European qualification a very difficult task for Everton to achieve.

Based on that bewildering statement, the Toffees might as well consider picking the ball up and throwing it into the net over their final four games—apparently, it’s allowed as long as they tell the officials it was an accident.