Barca president Joan Laporta appeared in a four-minute video released by the club in which he complained about the use of the VAR during the ‘Clasico’ against Madrid. His tirades focused particularly on Yamal’s ghost goal.
Barca president Joan Laporta has formally requested that the Referees Technical Committee and the Spanish Football Federation send the club all the audiovisual documents of Lamine Yamal’s ghost goal in Sunday night’s Clasico at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. Should the ‘Cules’ authorities prove that the ball went over Andriy Lunin’s goal line, they will ask for the match to be replayed.
The president said this directly in a four-minute video posted on the club’s social media channels. Indeed, the leader of Barcelona goes further and guarantees that he will take the legal action he deems appropriate to take action against the architects of a situation that he believes was detrimental to the result of Xavi Hernandez’s side. They lost 3-2 with a Jude Bellingham goal in stoppage time.
Real Madrid goalkeeper Andriy Lunin scrambled to clear Yamal’s effort (Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images)
The play to which the Catalan side’s boss refers took place on a shot in which Carlo Ancelotti’s goalkeeper cleared the ball off or behind the line. The referees couldn’t collate the footage sufficiently to reach a conclusive verdict because La Liga does not have the video resources to do so. There is no hawk’s eye and there was no angle other than one in which the Ukrainian goalkeeper was between his vision and the ball.
During the hours following the ‘Clasico’, criticism of the employers’ association for the absence of a technology that is accessible, in the form of 3D mapping, on foreign television channels such as Polish and French television, has proliferated. What few expected was that Joan Laporta would ask for a rematch if he could certify, through his own consultants, that Lamine Yamal scored, something that, depending on the media, may or may not appear to have happened.