This weekend, at the Santiago Bernabéu, Real Madrid snatched victory against Getafe (2-1). Despite the domination of Carlo Ancelotti’s men, the teammates of Eduardo Camavinga and Aurelien Tchouameni conceded the opener before reversing the situation through a certain Jude Bellingham. For its part, FC Barcelona also won, in pain on the same score, during a sluggish match on the lawn of Osasuna with two achievements signed Jules Koundé and Robert Lewandowski (2-1). Thanks to this victory, the Catalans have also found the podium in La Liga before the international break, two points behind Real Madrid, solid leader of the Spanish championship.
But this Monday, the Iberian press tells us that FC Barcelona is very concerned about the latest arbitration decisions which are considered, internally, as clearly biased in favor of Real Madrid and to the detriment of the Catalan club, despite the presence of the VAR supposed to help officials in their decision-making. The Barcelona leaders have also decided to list the errors made by the refereeing body since the start of the La Liga season. The latter notably includes seven controversial decisions according to the Blaugranas, four of which favored Real Madrid to a certain extent as well as three others which were detrimental to FC Barcelona.
No formal complaint so far
Indeed, according to AS, the list would include the various refereeing errors, pro Real Madrid and anti FC Barcelona according to the Catalans, following (with the names of the officials in parentheses): during the first day, penalty not whistled against Éder Militao and in favor of the ‘Athletic Bilbao (Gil Manzano) while a penalty against Barcelona was called for a Gavi handball against Getafe (Soto Grado); during the second matchday, a handball by Jude Bellingham was not counted in the 1-1 draw at Almería (Sánchez Martínez) while two penalties were missed for Barça, one for Lamine and the other for Lewandowski (Muñiz Ruiz); for the third day, a goal was disallowed at Celta de Vigo for a foul on Kepa Arrizabalaga (Díaz de Mera) while the Barcelonians conceded an offside goal against Villarreal (Hernández Hernández); finally on the fourth and last day, Joselu’s goal in an offside position was validated (Melero López).
The big concern that currently occupies the thoughts of the leaders of FC Barcelona concerning these decisions comes in particular from the fact that the VAR intervened for each of them. Despite this, the Catalans still felt aggrieved. Nevertheless, in the current context of uncertainty hanging over the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) following the Luis Rubiales affair since Spain’s victory in the last edition of the Women’s World Cup, FC Barcelona aren’t expected to make a formal complaint right away. It may therefore well be that there is no follow-up to this list drawn up by the Catalan club. Despite this, the historic rivalry intensifies between Spain’s two biggest clubs!
