Barcelona President Joan Laporta puts Clasico replay on the table due to ghost goal – cites precedent

Barcelona President Joan Laporta has requested that the club immediately be provided with the documentation from the referee’s report and the audio and visuals from the VAR room during their 3-2 defeat to Real Madrid. Laporta feels there was a manifest error in the decision not to give the ghost goal Lamine Yamal thought he had scored.

Laporta released a statement from Barcelona’s official social media accounts requesting the materials, and stating that if there was an error from the refereeing team, they will pursue legal action in order to have the game replayed.

“From Barcelona Football Club we will immediately request the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) and the RFEF to provide us with all the images and audio generated by the play (of Lamine Yamal’s ghost goal). If, once the documentation has been analysed, the club understands that there was an error in the assessment of the play, which is what we think, we will implement the appropriate measures that are necessary to reverse the situation without, obviously, ruling out judicial situations that may arise. If it is confirmed that it was a legal goal as we think, we will go further and ask for a replay of the match just as happened in another European match due to a VAR error.”

🚨 President Laporta: "There are tools like VAR that should help to have a fairer competition and not the other way around!" @FCBarcelona pic.twitter.com/tWlXIC2pTW

— barcacentre (@barcacentre) April 22, 2024

“As president of Barca, I want to convey the dissatisfaction caused by the fact that, one day after one of the most important matches on the world calendar, a tool such as VAR is setting our agenda. I have never been one of the great defenders of VAR because it takes away spontaneity from the game. But, since we have it, I am in favour of using it to avoid errors that lead to unfair decisions, rather than creating confusion and showing contradictory criteria depending on the games and the teams.”

Laporta cites another European competition, which MD point out is referring to a game between Genk and Anderlecht in Belgium, which will be replayed at the end of the regular season due to a VAR error. Laporta went on to claim that VAR is not achieving its goal to correct refereeing errors, but rather causing more incorrect decisions.

#FCBarcelona President Joan Laporta has asked for the documentation and the audios from the ghost goal of Lamine Yamal, to ensure there was no error.

Laporta has not ruled out asking for the Clasico to be replayed if there is an error found. pic.twitter.com/a9RmisFI4d

— Football España (@footballespana_) April 22, 2024

He goes on to claim that it is not a gratuitous move, but was adamant that those refereeing mistakes explained the 11-point gap between Real Madrid and Barcelona at the top of the table across this season.

“We have a competition followed by millions of followers, but that does not mean we can remain untouched by criticism when the use of VAR undervalues ​​the competition. We understand the difficulty of refereeing work but precisely for this reason the VAR is a tool that must serve to have a fairer competition and not the other way around. Yesterday there were several debatable plays but among all of them there is one that is capital and that could be key in the final result of the game. From here at the club we want to be sure of what happened.”

“I want to say that although we focus on this play, we disagree on various actions which could have been observed by the VAR and the tool was ignored by the referee. The club’s position is not gratuitous or advantageous but rather an action that is forced upon us by the indefensable situation we are experiencing, and by having suffered erroneous decisions ourselves and others that have benefitted our rival, the two added together are shown in the distance of points at the top of the league.”

There is no precedent in Spain for a match being repeated for a refereeing error, and despite some images making it look as if the ball was fully over the line, without goal-line technology or a camera at the right angle, ‘proving’ an error looks impossible.