Prior to last weekend’s Copa del Rey final, there was lots of controversy surrounding actions taken by Real Madrid. Through their official television channel, they released a scrutiny video that focused on Ricardo De Burgos Bengoetxea, who was the on-field official for the match against Barcelona.
De Burgos Bengoetxea spoke on the matter in a pre-match press conference, and his comments, as well as the remarks made by the VAR official, caused anger at Real Madrid, who had threatened to boycott the match if the officiating team was not replaced – but in the end, they backed down.
Real Madrid have already moved on from that controversy, and they have been unaffected by the backlash they received. That’s because they have released a new video on Thursday, this time focusing on Jesus Gil Manzano, who will be in charge of this weekend’s La Liga fixture against Celta Vigo.
As per Sport, RMTV referred to Gil Manzano as “the referee protagonist of the biggest refereeing scandal in recent times” – the reference for those remarks is last season’s match between Valencia and Real Madrid, when the referee blew the full time whistle seconds before Jude Bellingham would have made it 3-2.
This weekend’s match will be the fourth time this season that Gil Manzano has taken charge of a fixture involving Real Madrid. They won the two prior La Liga games (3-0 vs Girona, 2-1 vs Villarreal), but they did lose 5-2 to Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup final on the other occasion.
The match against Celta Vigo is a very important one for Real Madrid, who will be aiming to bounce back from the Copa del Rey final defeat to Barcelona. They trail their El Clasico rivals by four points in the La Liga standings with five games to go, so they must win in order to keep the pressure on.
