Joan Laporta, president of Barcelona, was not at all satisfied with the use of VAR in the classic against Real Madrid, played last Sunday. In a statement through the Catalan club’s media, the director did not rule out asking for a repeat of the match.
The move that generated the most complaints from Laporta happened in the 27th minute of the first half, when Lamine Yamal finished on goal and, according to VAR, the ball would not have completely crossed the goal line. The president asked the Technical Arbitration Committee of the Spanish Football Federation for images and audio of the VAR’s decision on the play.
“If, once this documentation has been analyzed, the club understands that there was an error in reviewing the incident, we will take all available measures to reverse the situation, without ruling out, obviously , any necessary legal action. FHi, a cool goal, let’s move on and don’t rule it out ask for the game to be repeated, just as it happened in another game in Europe due to a VAR error”, he revealed.
The director also commented on other games in the season in which Barcelona were harmed and Real Madrid favored by the refereeing, which would be the explanation for the Merengues’ large points advantage in the Spanish Championship table.
O The classic ended with a 3-2 victory for Real Madrid. The Catalan club even took a 2-1 lead on the scoreboard, but conceded the winning goal in the 46th minute of the second half.
See Joan Laporta’s full statement
“As president of FC Barcelona, I would like to express my dissatisfaction the next day the misuse of a tool like VAR in a of the most important games on the global calendar.
As you well know, I have never been a big supporter of VAR because I believe that, in the way it is applied, it takes away the spontaneity of football. But what am I The benefit is that, now that we have it, we always use it to avoid mistakes that could lead to unfair decisions.
In this appearance that I am making, not only am I bringing together the unhappiness of Barça fans with yesterday’s VAR management, but also, I am highlighting the fact that even though it is a tool that has been used for a long time, at the same time, it continues creating confusion with contradictory criteria according to games and teams. FC Barcelona would also like to highlight the power of our competition and that we are successful and followed by millions of fans around the world, but we cannot be exempt from criticism when the use of VAR harms our product.
We understand the difficulty referees face, but that’s why there are tools (like VAR) that should help the competition to be fairer and not the other way around. Yesterday, there were several debatable incidents, but among them all there is one that is crucial and could change the outcome of the game. I’m referring to Lamine’s ‘ghost goal’. As a club, we want to know for sure what happened and it is for this reason that we will make an immediate request to the Spanish Football Federation’s Technical Refereeing Committee for a comprehensive collection of images and audio of the play.
If once this documentation has been analyzed, the club understands that there was an error in reviewing the incident, we will take all available measures to reverse the situation, without ruling out, obviously , any necessary legal action. FHi, a cool goal, let’s move on and don’t rule it out ask for the game to be repeated, just as it happened in another game in Europe due to a VAR error. Finally, I would like to highlight that despite our focus on this play, we also disagree with several others that occurred during the game and that could have been reviewed using VAR.
Barça members and fans: the club’s position is not baseless nor advantageous, It is simply an action that we must take in relation to the situation we are experiencing of uncertainty and because we have suffered several times, throughout this season, wrong decisions in relation to what happened on the field of play, which harmed us, and others that benefited our rival . Added together, both show the points gap that currently exists at the top of the LALIGA leaderboard.“.
🎙️ Statement from the president @JoanLaportaFCB: “There are tools like VAR that should help make the competition fairer and not the other way around.” pic.twitter.com/pE5ag224CM
— FC Barcelona (@fcbarcelona_br) April 22, 2024
Source: Gazetaesportiva
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