Premier League confirm Newcastle United official decision ahead of Fulham match

The Premier League match officials have been confirmed for Newcastle United v Fulham on Saturday afternoon (3pm kick-off) at St James' Park.

Sam Barrott will referee the match on Tyneside as Newcastle look to end a run of three straight defeats. It will be the first Newcastle match Barrott has officiated in his refereeing career.

The 30-year-old is in his debut season refereeing in the Premier League and has switched between officiating top flight and Championship matches so far this campaign. In seven Premier League matches, Barrott has awarded two penalties and handed out 23 yellow cards but is yet to send a player off.

He will be assisted by Marc Perry and Steve Meredith with Oli Langford as fourth official. Michael Salisbury will be the VAR for the match, assisted by James Mainwaring.

Salisbury was VAR for Newcastle's previous Premier League match at St James' Park against Manchester United, a 1-0 win. But he was also at the centre of one of the most controversial VAR decisions from last season involving Newcastle. In September 2022, Newcastle thought they'd opened the scoring against Crystal Palace with Tyrick Mitchell putting the ball into his own net.

But a VAR intervention from Lee Mason prompted Salisbury to rule out the goal due to a foul by Joe Willock on Palace goalkeeper Vicente Guaita. Replays showed that Willock was pushed into Guaita by Mitchell and PGMOL later released a statement suggesting an error was made.

Mason was dropped for subsequent game weeks while Salisbury was moved to VAR duty.