If Real Madrid won 2-1 at the end of the match on Friday evening against Valencia, the Madrid club's TV channel did not digest the expulsion of Vinicius Jr, sent to the locker room after having hit the face of Dimitrievsky. Real Madrid TV claims that the referee was in favor of the locals and that he did everything to make the current La Liga leader lose.
Despite the victory, Real Madrid TV is not upset. Accustomed to complaining about referees, the Madrid club's television channel did not celebrate its team's close victory against Valencia on Friday evening (2-1), but rather complained about the red card addressed to Vinicius, after the latter hit Valencia goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski in the face, who had provoked him just before.
“I'm speaking in a personal capacity, but we have to leave this Liga. We have to leave this league. This league is disgusting. It's filth, it's filth,” declared Jesús Alcaide, director of the channel and one of the match commentators at the final whistle. “The refereeing establishment must be very disappointed that Real Madrid managed to beat Valencia, Medina Cantalejo (president of the Spanish refereeing committee, Editor's note), the refereeing system and Negreira.”
“What happened was manipulation”
The other complaint from Real Madrid TV concerns the replay offered by VAR to the referee of the match César Soto Grado, which showed “only part of what happened, not the whole film”. “Dimitrievski’s provocation against Vinicius is not proposed to the referee,” they lament. “Calling Soto Grado from the VAR and offering him only part of what happened is manipulation, misrepresentation and falsification of the competition. The 'Negreirato' continues in his way of 'act and with the obscurantism that we have seen now.'
The channel then lists what it considers to be refereeing errors: a penalty which should have been whistled on Vinicius for a foul by Barrenechea in the 33rd minute, the penalty missed by Bellingham in the 55th minute which should have be withdrawn, the goal disallowed to Mbappé in the 59th minute for offside and the expulsion of Vinicius at the request of the VAR in the 78th minute.
A reduced sanction for Vinicius?
In his report, Soto Grado explained that he sent off Vinicius in the 79th minute for having “deliberately hit an opponent in the head, without the ball being in play, using significant force”. A report deemed “very benevolent” according to former referee Eduardo Iturralde Gonzalez, who recalls that the ball was in play at the time of Vinicius' bad gesture.
A detail which increases the Brazilian's potential sanction from four to twelve matches if the ball is in play (article 103) compared to only two to three matches if the ball is stopped (121). The VAR audios, broadcast by the Spanish federation after each match, indicate that the referee asked the question whether the ball was in play and that the VAR indicated to him that “yes”.
