Real Madrid have continued their tirade against refereeing in La Liga, claiming that they are unfairly treated by the officials. Los Blancos were incensed by the decision not to send off Espanyol wide man Carlos Romero on Sunday, who would later condemn them to defeat on Saturday night with a late winner.
The decision was called ‘inexplicable’ by manager Carlo Ancelotti, while the Real Madrid players did not speak with the media after the game, be it Real Madrid club media or otherwise. Real Madrid TV released their umpteenth scathing report about a referee, and on Sunday night tweeted it out from their official account, calling La Liga ‘stained by Negreira’. That references the ongoing corruption investigation into payments made by Barcelona to the Vice-President of the Referees Committee (CTA) over 17 years, although no evidence has been found that referees favoured the Blaugrana during that period.
In a four-page letter signed by Jose Luis del Valle Perez, who is the secretary of the Real Madrid board and a lobbyist for President Florentino Perez’s ACS construction company, the club affirms that the scandal cannot continue and requests the sacking of several specific officials. Los Blancos call the refereeing system ‘discredited’, ‘corrupted’ and say that the decision not to send off Romero was not an isolated incident.
The letter goes on to claim that images shown to referees during VAR reviews are deliberately manipulated and go beyond human error. Real Madrid request the audio from the VAR communication with the referee for the Romero incident, a disallowed Vinicius Junior, and the VOR room for both incidents. They also sent a copy to the Ministry for Sport, hoping they can weigh in.
Curiously, both Atletico Madrid and Barcelona have complained against what they see as a trend of decisions benefitting Real Madrid over decades in recent months too, with Diego Simeone referring to it, as ‘things that have been happening for 100 years’, and Joan Laporta saying Los Blancos have been ‘historically favoured’. Until any of these sides can acknowledge when a decision goes in their favour, it will be difficult for any independent observer to take their complaints seriously.
