Joan Laporta and his inner circle in Barça's command post are in disbelief over Real Madrid's letter against the refereeing body.
At FC Barcelona, they don't understand Real Madrid's complaints from their comfortable position as the leading team in penalty distribution. 10 in favor and 0 against.
10 penalties in favor and 0 against. And they think it's not enough...
Barça has scored 10 more goals than Real Madrid, which means they enter the area more, and only 4 penalties have been awarded in their favor. Meanwhile, the fact that no referee has dared to call a penalty against Real Madrid also surprises at Camp Nou. Especially after seeing a Celta player being brought down in the white area recently.
Laporta is astonished because he was reprimanded for saying that a penalty committed on Koundé and not called was a disgrace and a scandal. After reading Real Madrid's letter, in which nothing and no one is left unscathed, Laporta wonders what the reaction of the affected bodies will be. Or will they also not dare to confront Real Madrid in the offices?
The Barcelona president is surprised by Florentino Pérez's ability to divert attention when results are unfavorable. He recalls when Barça was accused of being crybabies for complaining about referees.
The conclusion is that after this outcry in the form of a major rant, all referees will tread carefully to avoid Real Madrid being harmed.
José Plaza and Gil Manzano
At Camp Nou, they are perplexed because Florentino Pérez behaves like Joan Gaspart blinded by his fanaticism and his lack of self-criticism. No one at Barça thinks Real Madrid lost in Cornellà because of the referee. Meanwhile, they believe Real Madrid is capable of repeating this tantrum every time they don't earn three points.
Regarding the Federation and the refereeing body, Barça shares the same view since time immemorial, when the president of the referees, José Plaza, boasted that Barça wouldn't be league champions while he was in charge of the refereeing class.
The paragraph requesting "the replacement of those referees whose association with suspect periods compromises the system's legitimacy and perpetuates its lack of transparency" has also drawn attention. They wonder if among the referees to be replaced will be Gil Manzano, known for his fondness for the white color.
The role of Yolanda Parga in refereeing corruption
Meanwhile, they wonder if the best way to combat refereeing corruption is by placing the wife of a Florentino employee in charge of grading referees. Barça felt very wronged by the referee in Getafe, the person responsible for evaluating the refereeing performance was Yolanda Pardo, wife of Mejía Dávila, and nothing happened here. As always when it comes to Barça.
It was quite amusing the interest in highlighting that the scandal crosses borders. In Barcelona, they already know that abroad they are aware of what happens at Bernabéu. Even Ancelotti cried out to the heavens when he played the role of victim.Abroad, they already have a great understanding of what happens at Bernabéu with the referees.
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The explosive letter from Real Madrid
"Mr. President,
Real Madrid Club de Fútbol submits this formal complaint to the Royal Spanish Football Federation due to the scandalous performance of the refereeing and VAR in the match played on February 1, 2025, against RCD Espanyol. The events that occurred in this match have exceeded any margin of human error or refereeing interpretation. What happened at the RCDE Stadium represents the culmination of a completely discredited refereeing system, in which decisions against Real Madrid have reached a level of manipulation and adulteration of the competition that can no longer be ignored. The two most serious refereeing decisions in this match have once again highlighted the double standard with which Real Madrid is refereed:
1. The brutal tackle on Kylian Mbappé, from behind, on the calf and with no possibility of playing the ball, made in the 60th minute of the match by the Espanyol player who would later score the winning goal for his team, deserving of immediate expulsion as highlighted by the world press, ended with the referee's decision, Alejandro Muñiz Ruiz, to show only a yellow card without VAR, with Javier Iglesias Villanueva in charge, intervening to correct a manifestly erroneous decision, leaving unpunished an aggression that in any other competition would have resulted in an exemplary sanction.
It is particularly serious that the match referee recorded in the report that the action occurred "in the contest for the ball" (sic), thus distorting and falsifying the reality of what happened, with the only imaginable purpose of justifying his arbitrary decision. A statement that, far from being sustained, is contradicted by the offender himself, who, when asked after the match, admitted without hesitation that "he knew it was impossible to stop him in the race" and that "he tried to stop him as best he could," also admitting that "it was a bit of an ugly tackle." He couldn't have been clearer: there was no intention to play the ball, but the express will to stop the opponent at any cost with an inadmissible action not only for its severity and unsportsmanlike nature but also for the danger it entailed for our player's physical integrity, making the referee's decision and VAR's inaction unquestionably serious.
2. In the 21st minute of the first half of the match, Vinícius Jr. scored an absolutely legal goal, which was annulled for an alleged prior foul by Kylian Mbappé, despite the images showing that in that play, the one who was fouled, a clear penalty, was our player, yet the goal was annulled, and a penalty in favor was turned into a foul against, without VAR intervening to correct the error or even indicating to the referee to review the play on the monitor. The scandal caused by this match has once again had a global impact, with the international press denouncing the biased use of VAR in Spain and the lack of credibility of Spanish refereeing. Despite the information published in sports newspapers regarding the supposed adoption of disciplinary measures by the Technical Committee of Referees, according to which referees Muñiz Ruiz and Iglesias Villanueva would have been sent "to the fridge," even assuming these measures are true, the only thing they prove is the seriousness of the refereeing decisions made in the match and the inconsistency of the current refereeing system. The very acknowledgment of errors of such magnitude by the responsible body demonstrates the gross and unjustifiable nature of the actions of both the field referee and VAR, and reinforces Real Madrid's complaint about the systematic harm they are suffering. However, the problem is not solved with late and individualized sanctions when the decisions made, as in this case, directly affect the competition's outcome. What is really needed is a structural reform that prevents these events from recurring repeatedly, as has been happening repeatedly to the detriment of Real Madrid and the integrity of the championship.
Given the seriousness of what happened, Real Madrid demands from the RFEF the immediate delivery of the VAR audios related to the two key plays of the match:
1. The audios of the communication between VAR and the field referee in the action of Carlos Romero's tackle on Kylian Mbappé.
2. The audios of the communication between VAR and the field referee in the play of the disallowed goal to Vinícius Jr.
3. The conversations produced among the members of the VAR room in both plays.
The knowledge of the content of these audios is essential to shed light on the decisions made and the refereeing performance. This refereeing scandal is not an isolated case. The Spanish refereeing system is completely flawed and structurally designed to protect itself, with the support of the Disciplinary Committees dependent on the RFEF itself, which systematically refuse to sanction referees, modify arbitrary sanctions, and, ultimately, maintain a system that has already been labeled fraudulent by ordinary justice.
The serious structural problems of Spanish refereeing have been exposed in recent years, with revelations that have highlighted practices incompatible with the transparency and impartiality that should govern the competition. However, despite the magnitude of the scandal and the erosion of the system's credibility, there has been no real reform or effective accountability. What happened at the RCDE Stadium is not an isolated episode or a mere refereeing error. It is the most recent and blatant manifestation of a refereeing system whose credibility is completely eroded, not only by the accumulation of decisions that have put it under suspicion but by its own structure, designed to operate without effective control and outside any requirement of impartiality. A system maintained and protected from within the Federation itself, through its successive presidents, by a network of cross-interests in which the refereeing collective, far from being a strictly technical body subject to criteria of neutrality and excellence, has become a political actor with a decisive weight in federative electoral processes. When those who should be subject to scrutiny and control are, at the same time, a decisive factor in the election of those who should exercise that supervisory role, the result is what we are experiencing. An institutionalized clientelism that turns refereeing into an untouchable power within the Federation itself, ensuring its perpetuation without even the greatest scandals being enough to genuinely push for a structural reform in its functioning.
The irregularities in the use of VAR against our entity have been proven by court rulings, which have shown how the images shown to referees have even been manipulated to induce erroneous decisions against Real Madrid.
Judgment No. 287/2023 of the Social Court No. 47 of Madrid and that of December 7, 2023, issued by the Social Court No. 32 of Madrid, Case 497/2023, declared proven that the VAR referee concealed key images from the field referee, leading to the unjust expulsion of our player Vinícius Jr., evidencing an action that transcends human errors to intentionality. The same manipulation of images was repeated on January 3, 2025, in the same scenario, showing that these are not isolated errors but a recurring way of acting, used as a mechanism to harm Real Madrid.
The refereeing inaction in the face of racist insults, denounced by this party unsuccessfully before the permissiveness of the RFEF disciplinary committees, not only aggravates the problem but adds a new factor of discredit to the refereeing system and the Spanish Football Federation itself. Meanwhile, the reality is that the refereeing and disciplinary structure continues to function unchanged, perpetuating a system that has proven to be corrupted from within, which only cares about pursuing protests against referees and any other complaint or manifestation that highlights the reality of the Spanish refereeing system or that simply doesn't please its leaders.
The scandal caused by this last match, whose impact has transcended our borders, is not an isolated fact or a minor incident, but the unequivocal confirmation that the competition is tainted by refereeing decisions whose justification is unsustainable.
Real Madrid can't accept that the competition continues to be governed by a discredited refereeing system, whose main responsible parties, far from being removed, continue to exercise determining functions in decision-making. It is not enough with superficial changes or the replacement of some directors; the only way to restore the credibility of Spanish refereeing requires a comprehensive reform that includes, as an essential element, the replacement of those referees whose association with suspect periods compromises the system's legitimacy and perpetuates its lack of transparency.
It is not enough with superficial adjustments or the application of protocols that don't alter the core of the problem, nor with calls for meetings empty of real content, which in reality have the sole intention of perpetuating a system that in judicial terms has been labeled "systemically corrupt." The refereeing system must be renewed in its entirety, from its structure to those who integrate it, establishing effective control mechanisms that prevent the scenario that has led Spanish football to this situation of absolute discredit from being reproduced again.
Given the seriousness of what has been exposed and the recurrence of irregularities affecting the integrity of the competition, a copy of this is sent to the Higher Sports Council (CSD), so that it is aware of the situation and, if applicable, takes the measures it deems appropriate.
Sincerely,
José Luis del Valle Pérez, Secretary of the Board of Directors."