Barcelona President Alleges VAR Favours Real Madrid

Barcelona’s president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, has suggested that the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) favours Real Madrid.

The Catalans are four points behind their rivals, Real, following Sunday’s round of fixtures.

Barca beat Villarreal 4-1 on Sunday to keep their faltering title hopes alive, while Madrid had edged Athletic Bilbao 1-0 earlier in the day.

Sergio Ramos scored the only goal of that game when referee, Jose Gonzalez Gonzalez awarded a penalty for Dani Garcia’s foul on Marcelo after checking with the pitchside VAR monitor.

Gonzalez Gonzalez then decided not to give Athletic a penalty, when Ramos caught Raul Garcia at the other end.

“I saw the game in Bilbao, another win for Madrid. Our message, which I will repeat: I feel bad, but VAR is not at the level that we hoped for the best league in the world.

“Since the league restarted, it’s not been very fair and that’s having an effect on results. And it seems it always favours the same [team]. There have been many games when VAR has favoured the same [team] — and many teams have been disadvantaged as a result.

“We spoke with the [Royal Spanish Football Federation] about it in the past. VAR should help referees but in the images everyone has seen in recent weeks it’s not been fair,” Bartomeu told Movistar.