• Liga.Bartomeu: "VAR always favors the same team"

The wick was already on and Josep Maria Bartomeu finished stoking the fire at the end of Villarreal-Barcelona . “The VAR is unequal. This is having an impact on some results that are not being good for some teams and always favors it, "said the Barça president when asked about the controversial moves of Athletic-Real Madrid played a few hours earlier. Beyond the evident intention of the Barça president -and that the refereeing does not have to be fair, but fair-, his words help to highlight a feeling that runs through many points of the Spanish soccer geography: no one understands the VAR .

" It was not a nice day for VAR, " LaLiga president Javier Tebas lamented yesterday about a day in which Athletic claimed a penalty from Sergio Ramos over Raúl García and in which Osasuna protested the cancellation of A goal in Getafe's own door . The complaints of these two teams are added to the one that teams such as Betis, Celta, Real Sociedad, Valencia have formulated in previous days ... «We are seeing how the trend of the last days is and in favor of which teams are opting for this type of actions ", Iker Muniain also protested after Madrid's visit to San Mamés, implicitly recalling a move by Barça-Athletic in which the people of Bilbao consider that Messi should have seen the red card for a dangerous stomp on Yeray. Rains, it pours.

There is little concern among the referees about the recent criticism of the VAR. Recognizing that there may be mistakes, they understand, they always have, that criticism of their work, both on the field and in Las Rozas , is cyclical and generally magnified when one of the two greats of the League raises their voices directly or indirectly. . And if they were worried, they weren't going to say it either, because the philosophy of washing dirty laundry at home and not airing their reflections on possible specific errors prevails. Technological errors are another thing : yesterday Tebas assured that in a recent Atlético match there was no VAR for half an hour.

But beyond what could have happened in San Mamés or the games that affect the fight for the title, in the last three days, just a week, several errors accumulate that are incomprehensible . At Getafe-Real Sociedad last Monday, Cordero Vega signaled a penalty from Le Normand for taking down Hugo Duro in the fight for a ball. Although live it could give the sensation that the lack existed, the repetition made clear that the striker strikes before the realistic defender , reason for which he is unbalanced and commits the alleged infraction. Álvarez Izquierdo, from the VAR room, did not correct the referee.

A day later, at Mallorca-Celta , De Burgos Bengoetxea first signaled a penalty on Dani Rodríguez. After several minutes, the Basque referee went to the monitor at the foot of the field on the recommendation of González González. The images made it clear that Santi Mina had not touched the vermilion footballer , that is, that Dani Rodríguez had committed a 'pool shot'. Despite this, De Burgos did not correct his initial decision and remained adamant that it was a penalty.

And, on Saturday, González Fuertes made the most difficult yet. He decreed a penalty for a foul by Rafinha on Guardado at Celta-Betis . At the request of Martínez Munuera, he went to the monitor to review his decision. And there he spent a while analyzing whether the Celta player brushed the ball before hitting the Betis Mexican. In no image is it clear that this happened and, despite everything, the referee altered his decision. Even Nolito, a Celta player, recognized after the match that it was a penalty for him.

"I, after what happened on Saturday in Vigo, I don't understand anything anymore ," laments Rafa Guerrero , a former international assistant and now an arbitration analyst in the media. One of the main complaints among football clubs is precisely the lack of knowledge on which plays the VAR must intervene. Velasco Carballo , president of the Technical Committee of Referees, has always insisted that the video enters into "clear and manifest errors", understanding as such those in which there is no margin for interpretation or doubt. Several of the cases listed above make it clear that this criterion does not always apply.

" Soccer, soccer people, from fans to players, does not understand the VAR , we do not know what it is for," Guerrero summarizes, pointing to the protocol as an important source of problems and emphasizing that the referees combine the work in the field with the one in the VOR room: «An assistant is only an assistant, he only takes the flag, he doesn't take the whistle. Why are there no specialists in the VAR? It is inadmissible that the VAR referee is a field referee . This duplicity causes situations that burden the collegiate with media pressure, such as Gil Manzano going to referee Real Madrid-Alavés on Friday after having been VAR in the controversial Athletic-Real Madrid on Sunday.

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