Espanyol statement against the arbitrations suffered: shows its concern about the inequality of criteria in the application of the VAR

The weekend has started with controversy, back with the arbitrations in Spanish football. First it was Seville the one who published a statement demanding equality in the treatment of the members and hours later, Espanyol did the same, whereas he has been harmed by VAR for the past two days.

The parakeets complain about the differences in criteria when applying the video arbitration and the straw that broke the camel’s back was the game in which Braithwaite saw a goal against Athletic disallowed for a Joselu’s previous hand.

This is how the full official statement reads.

RCD Espanyol de Barcelona wants to show its disagreement and concern about the actions of referees during the season and especially given the disparity of refereeing criteria in the application of VAR.

We understand that various errors in the use of VAR technology have particularly harmed our team, something that has become more than apparent in the past two days. In the past in Girona, a penalty kick awarded by the referee to our player, Vinicius de Souza, at the end of the game was not assessed by the VAR, despite there being no penal action in the area; Today, however, VAR does come on the scene to cancel a legal goal by Martin Braithwaite in the 43rd minute by RCD Espanyol -Athletic Club, pointing to an alleged and improbable earlier voluntary handball by Joselu Mato. However, what the VAR footage confirms is that the striker is clearly grabbed by the arm by Athletic Club player Vivian inside the penalty area, with the result that the ball hits his hand, making it impossible for there to be any voluntariness in the competition. action. Nor was it considered appropriate today to show the second card and thus the exclusion of Dani García in the 42nd minute of the game when, without any possibility of challenging the ball, he cut off a counter-attack of our team in which of the advantage the law is applied.We are talking about decisive actions for the final result of the last two games. Actions added to comparative grievances such as the one on matchday 2 against Rayo, in which the VAR intervenes to send off Serg Gómez for an alleged push against a rival or on matchday 7, against Valencia, in which the player is sent off for the same action, also after a VAR review, was Martin Braithwaite.The VAR did not think it appropriate to review an identical action on matchday 19 in Almería, when the victim of the action was the Danish striker. A game in which we had the dubious honor of witnessing the first on-pitch assessment by the referee of a millimeter offside multiple passes for an action that ended in a resounding penalty on Edu Expósito, which would also have led to the expulsion of César de la Hoz. Again, and despite the game ending in a win, the game against Betis on matchday 18 meant a goal disallowed for Aleix Vidal due to an alleged previous foul by Puado. A handful previously grabbed by a rival in the area, trying to get rid of it, accidentally hit the opponent’s face. The VAR did not appear there either.And a long etcetera of actions where the common denominator is the disparate criteria when it comes to whether or not to use the existing VAR technology and the clear prejudice, in our view, to our interests.

We do not intend to excuse our own mistakes, which mainly put us in a complex sporting situation at the end of the season. We have and will respect the difficult arbitration work and we have shown superb empathy in the league so far, despite repeatedly feeling that criteria and decisions were elusive. But we cannot remain unmoved by a situation of objective damage and divergent criteria in the use of technology and in the application of the regulation.