Referees the world over have always been a focus of criticism and controversy, but there is something unique about the scrutiny to which they are subjected in Spain.
Sports newspapers give referees grades as if they were marking students. Hours and hours of TV and radio broadcasting are dedicated to their decision-making. Club presidents constantly complain about supposed conspiracy or unfair treatment. Social media has only amplified the bickering and, of course, the introduction of VARs has played its role too.
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Certainly unique to Spain is the Negreira case — and its fallout has only added to an already toxic mix.
Earlier this year, it emerged Barcelona allegedly made payments totalling €7.3million (£6.3m; $7.7m at current exchange rates) to the vice president of Spanish football’s refereeing committee, Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira. Alleged payments Barca made between 2001 and 2018 are being investigated for possible corruption in a case brought by the Spanish public prosecutor’s office.
In September, the investigating judge in charge of the case, Joaquin Aguirre Lopez, said no evidence had been found of Enriquez Negreira paying referees to influence match results. Enriquez Negreira has denied favouring Barca in terms of refereeing decisions. The Catalan club have also denied any wrongdoing and said Enriquez Negreira was hired as an “external consultant” who provided reports “related to professional refereeing”.
Eduardo Iturralde Gonzalez was a Spanish top-flight referee for 17 years before he retired in 2012. He previously told The Athletic that “Negreira was not a person who had a bond with the match officials”, that he instead “had more of an institutional role” and “did not engage with referees”.
Nonetheless, Iturralde acknowledges that “the climate has changed a lot in Spain with regard to refereeing because of the Negreira case”.
In this already heated context, Spanish football has just experienced a particularly heady week of refereeing controversy.
Last Saturday evening, Celta Vigo forward Iago Aspas angrily knocked over the VAR monitor after his side were denied a 96th-minute penalty in a 1-1 draw at home to Sevilla. Following a VAR review, the referee’s decision to penalise Jesus Navas for minor contact on Anastasios Douvikas was overturned.
Aspas later apologised on social media, describing his behaviour as “not the example I wanted to set”, but immediately after the game, he said: “We’ve played 12 games and the balance always goes the other way. We want to be the best league in the world and that’s not how we progress.”
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At Real Betis’ home match against Real Mallorca earlier in the day, there was also plenty of debate over the decision to show a second yellow card to the away side’s midfielder, Omar Mascarell, after a 50-50 challenge with Marc Roca. To Mallorca’s frustration, since Mascarell was sent off for two bookings rather than a straight red, the VAR could not intervene.
And in Sunday’s match between Valencia and Granada, the away side were incensed that Gabriel Paulista was not punished with a red card for a reckless challenge on Lucas Boye. Instead, the former Arsenal defender was shown a yellow.
Mistakes can be made. On Wednesday, Mascarell’s red card was rescinded by Spanish football’s Competition Committee, so he will not be suspended for their next game. But former referee Iturralde believes there is “nothing to suggest that more mistakes are being made” now.
“Instead, they are being amplified,” he says. “Because of the Negreira case and the social networks, there is a loudspeaker that amplifies them, but mistakes are always the same.
“It’s not just in Spain, the crisis of confidence is in Europe, the pressure is on everyone. But referees cope well with the pressure in Spain.
“To go up to the first division of Spanish football you have to go through all the categories. If you ask any referee, they all started very, very young, at 14 or 15 years old. You decide to create a shield, a protective shield to get to the top. By the time you get to the top, you’ve seen everything and you put all this pressure into perspective.”
Real Madrid’s trip to Sevilla on October 21 provides a good case study of the pressures facing match officials in Spain.
During the game, Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti was involved in a heated exchange with the referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea, who, at one point, put his hands around Ancelotti’s lower arms in an attempt to calm him down. Ancelotti told him “don’t touch me”, a reflection of the Italian’s anger at what he and his club saw as several decisions that harmed them.
In the fourth minute, a Federico Valverde goal was disallowed because Jude Bellingham was offside. Images produced by the VAR confirmed it was the correct decision — though this did not stop many Madrid fans complaining on social media that other angles (incorrectly) suggested he was onside.
Shortly after, Madrid were complaining again. Despite the referee having stopped play for a foul in the Sevilla half, Madrid broke up the field in a move that ended with Bellingham finding the net and celebrating a goal. It did not count, because of the earlier foul.
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On the stroke of half-time, Ancelotti’s side were up in arms over a penalty they felt should have been awarded after a challenge in the box by Navas (again) on Vinicius Junior.
The match ended in a 1-1 draw. Afterwards, Ancelotti said: “If I say what I think about the refereeing, I’ll get (banned for) a lot of matches.”
Instead, the talking was left to Real Madrid TV.
Madrid’s official channel dedicates hours of broadcasting each week to refereeing ‘analysis’ and De Burgos Bengoetxea’s officiating was no exception. Even before the match at Sevilla, the station ran segments scrutinising previous decisions that, in the club’s eyes, should have been given in their favour.
Madrid are not the only Spanish club to loudly complain about the ‘injustices’ against them but few other clubs are so deeply entrenched in their thinking over officials. And, after the Sevilla game, De Burgos Bengoetxea was subject to more of the same.
“In Spain, even objective criteria, like offside lines, are called into question,” Iturralde says.
“Football is passion and with feelings, there is no reasoning. But the attitude we’re left with is: ‘Anything that goes against my team is going to affect me and I’m going to see it badly.’”
Will the constant criticism of on-pitch decisions and VAR interventions drive the game’s authorities to consider any changes?
Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, and Pedro Rocha, acting president of the RFEF, both spoke on the matter during an AFE players’ union event on Monday, the same evening as Cadiz’s trip to face Getafe brought a curious scene: referee De Burgos Bengoetxea calling over both managers to explain a VAR decision by the pitchside monitor.
Tebas, as usual, was the bolder of the two. “Let’s see if we can make a change,” he said. “With this new management in the RFEF, we are going to look for more transparency in the decisions, so they are understood.
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“So, at some point, the VAR audios are listened to, more things are heard and, with the beginnings of transparency, maybe a lot of the tension can be reduced, as is happening in other competitions, like in the Premier League or Serie A.”
Whether tensions are being reduced in England or Italy is debatable but, for his part, Rocha said: “There has to be no polemic. We have to unite. The refereeing collective is very professional. It’s a pleasure to see how they prepare. But we have to help them all together.”
In that spirit of unity, let’s give the final word to a (former) referee.
“The big mistake that football has made is to put in VAR when people were not ready for it,” Iturralde says.
“People believed that, with the VAR, all decisions would be fair. The expectations were that the discussions would end. But when it comes to judgement calls, there will continue to be grey areas.
“Most laws of the game are a matter of judgement. Who is right? When I see these plays I say what I would do but it’s not an absolute truth. When it comes to judgement calls, there will continue to be grey areas.
“Before VAR, and these are statistics from La Liga, referees got 94 per cent of their decisions right. VAR was brought in with the lie that football urgently needed a machine to correct errors, but we have only gained 4.5 per cent.
“Instead, the introduction of VAR has led to a lack of confidence in referees. Because we believe that VAR will always be right for us. And when it doesn’t agree with us, we don’t like it.”
(Top photo: Jose Miguel Fernandez/NurPhoto via Getty Images)