Real Madrid has great potential to win the Spanish League title in 2019-2020. Los Blancos, nicknamed for Real Madrid, are leading the Spanish League standings towards the end of the season. They collected 74 points. Los Blancos has four more points compare to Barcelona who are in second place.
The chance is getting stronger because only four more weeks remains in the Liga and Real Madrid only need three wins to win the LaLiga title. Seeing these opportunities, the Barcelona began to look depressed, from fans, players, to the president.
Barcelona are arguing that Real Madrid has a great chance of winning the title because it is “assisted” by a video assistant referee (VAR). “It’s clear, VAR and Real Madrid won LaLiga,” wrote the Barcelona fan account @VintageMessi on Twitter.
Likewise Barcelona players began to speak out that Madrid could lead the standings thanks to the help of VAR. The Barcelona player who eagerly quip that VAR help Madrid is Gerard Pique. The lover of the singer Shakira had offended Sergio Ramos et al when he benefited from VAR.
The latest, he made a controversial gesture. Pique makes the fingers move forward while laughing after the referee decides the goal is disallowed. The movement is like a person typing on a keyboard that ends with the movement of people making lines. This gesture also invites many questions for citizens, especially on Twitter. However, he claimed to forget about the movement when interviewed after the Villarreal vs Barcelona match.
Then the Barcelona president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, also considered the existence of VAR unfair. “Since the Spanish League continued, the use of VAR is unfair and it has influenced the outcome of the match,” Bartomeu said. “VAR now looks to only benefit the same team (Real Madrid). VAR should be used to help the referee. However, the last few matches they actually made an unfair decision,” said Bartomeu added.
VAR itself review 4 categories of decisions,which are:
- Goal/no goal – attacking team commits an offence, ball out of play, ball entering goal, offside, handball, offences and encroachment during penalty kicks.
- Penalty/no penalty – attacking team commits an offence, ball out of play, location of offence, incorrect awarding, offence not penalised.
- Straight red card – denial of obvious goal-scoring opportunity, serious foul play, violent conduct/biting/spitting, using offensive/insulting/abusive language or gestures. All straight red cards are subject to review.
- Mistaken identity in awarding a red or yellow car
Even though VAR is created to assist fair game, it is critisized due to the confusion it created. So, do you agree with it?