Madrid’s blistering attack: La Liga decided behind closed doors | Goal.com
In a scathing opinion piece published by Spanish newspaper AS under the headline Tomás Roncero launches a blistering critique of Spain’s refereeing setup, accusing it of perpetuating “historical injustice” against Real Madrid and arguing that the recent Girona controversy is merely the latest chapter in what he calls “the Negreira legacy”.
The piece begins:
“Despair crept into Madridista hearts after the Mallorca defeat, when the La Liga title seemed to have slipped away.”
A home win over Girona would have reapplied the pressure on Barcelona and kept alive hopes of a late push, perhaps aided by Espanyol in the Camp Nou derby. Instead, Spanish football appears intent on revisiting its past.
In a round that felt like a retroactive tribute to controversy, the officiating crew appeared to honour José María Enríquez Negreira—the former referee and later vice-president of the Referees’ Committee who had long favoured Barcelona, even pocketing millions from the Catalan club.
In any other league that respects its rules, Barcelona would have been relegated and stripped of titles, as Juventus was; in Spain, however, the “legacy” endures.
Then came the 88th minute against Girona: the clear penalty on Kylian Mbappé that even a child could have pointed out.
Alberola might have missed Vitor Reis’s challenge, but VAR official Daniel Jesús Troguello Suárez, monitoring the footage in Las Rozas, did not intervene.
Trujillo saw Mbappé bleeding and the clear kick, yet he chose to do nothing. This was not a mistake; it was a deliberate failure to act. Even Real Madrid’s critics were left searching for an explanation, and our phones filled with messages of disbelief.
The same official, who hails from Tenerife—a city where Madrid controversially lost two titles in the 1990s—has now twice frustrated the club’s ambitions: last season he denied Real three penalties in Pamplona, and today he finished the job.
From the controversial decision to spare Gerard Martin a red card in the Madrid derby to today’s fresh refereeing controversies, one bitter conclusion is hard to avoid: the league has been compromised. The May ‘Clásico’ now feels meaningless, because the title was settled in boardrooms and backrooms long before it was contested on the pitch.
Orijinal haberi okuyun
