FC Barcelona’s last chance of winning the title has been gone since Sunday evening. After the 2:3 defeat in the Clasico at arch-rivals Real Madrid, president Joan Laporta was particularly incensed by a scene at 1:1
Keeper Marc-André ter Stegen and coach Xavi had already made their position abundantly clear. Perhaps also because La Liga president Javier Tebas countered these statements, Barcelona president Joan Laporta spoke out on Monday afternoon.
“As president of FC Barcelona, I would like to express my dissatisfaction that one day after one of the most important matches in the world, the abuse of an instrument such as VAR is on our agenda,” the 61-year-old began in a long statement.
It is no secret that he has “never been a great supporter of VAR” because it takes the “spontaneity” out of soccer. “But I am in favor of it always being used, as long as we have it, to avoid mistakes that could lead to unfair decisions. “
Instead, the VAR in La Liga “continues to cause confusion” and stands for “contradictory criteria – depending on the game and team”. The criticism was triggered by the 28th minute, in which Lamine Yamal was possibly wrongly denied his first Clasico goal. As there is no goal-line technology in La Liga, only a VAR review was carried out – with the result that it was not possible to determine with certainty whether the ball had completely crossed the line.
“We understand the difficulty for the referees, but that’s exactly why tools like VAR exist, to help make the competition fairer and not the other way around,” explained Laporta, who added: “Yesterday there were several questionable scenes, but among them there is one that stands out and can change the final result of the game. I’m talking about the so-called phantom goal by Lamine. “
All image and sound recordings already requested
Barcelona want “certainty about what happened”. That is why the Catalans have already asked the Technical Refereeing Commission and the Spanish Football Federation to “provide us with all the images and audio recordings taken during the match”.
Should Spain’s second-placed team conclude from their own analysis “that there was an error in the assessment of the match, we will take all necessary steps – legal if necessary – to rectify the situation. If it is confirmed that it was a legal goal, we will go further and do not rule out requesting a replay, as has already happened in a European match due to a VAR error.”
In Belgium, the match between Genk and Anderlecht was replayed due to a VAR error. In October 2023, Jürgen Klopp also demanded a replay for Liverpool FC because a goal was wrongly disallowed.
Laporta emphasized, however, that although the “phantom goal” was the main focus of the analysis, the rest of referee Cesar Soto Grado’s performance was also under scrutiny. The Blaugrana saw themselves in a “situation of defenselessness”. Overall, “numerous” situations over the course of the season “that have hurt us and others that have benefited our rivals” have led to the eleven-point gap in the table