BARCELONA, Spain — Barcelona have filed a second complaint to UEFA complaining that refereeing standards were not complied with in their Champions League quarterfinal exit to Atlético Madrid.
The Spanish champions are refusing to take their elimination lying down, saying errors made by the match officials across both legs of the tie have caused “significant sporting and financial harm to the club.”
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Atlético won the quarterfinal 3-2 on aggregate, setting up a semifinal with Premier League side Arsenal.
“The club has submitted a complaint to UEFA regarding the refereeing performance in the Champions League tie played against Atlético,” Barça said in a statement on Thursday.
“The club considers that, across both legs of the tie, several refereeing decisions were made that did not comply with the Laws of the Game, resulting from an incorrect application of the regulations and a lack of appropriate intervention by the VAR system in incidents of clear significance.
“The accumulation of these errors had a direct impact on the course of the matches and on the final outcome of the tie, causing significant sporting and financial harm to the club.
“Through this complaint, the club reiterates the requests previously made to UEFA and, at the same time, offers to collaborate with the organisation with the aim of improving the refereeing system to ensure a more rigorous, fair and transparent application of the Laws of the Game.”
Barça had already filed a complaint to UEFA after the first leg, claiming a penalty and red card should have been given when defender Marc Pubill, on a booking, touched the ball with his hand after goalkeeper Juan Musso had appeared to restart play.
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UEFA deemed that protest “inadmissible” earlier this week.
In their latest statement, Barça have not gone into details about which decisions they felt were wrong, but president Joan Laporta presented a lengthy list of grievances after Tuesday’s knockout.
Laporta moaned the red cards in both legs — Pau Cubarsí in the first leg and Eric García in the second — should have been yellows; that Dani Olmo should have been awarded a penalty; that Ferran Torres‘ offside goal should not have been ruled out; and that action should have been taken for Musso busting Fermín López‘s lip open with his boot.
“The refereeing as a disgrace,” the Barça chief told reporters earlier this week.
“We filed a complaint after the first leg and UEFA said it was ‘inadmissible.’ We will ask for further explanations. The club will also make another complaint because what’s inadmissible is what happened to us on Tuesday once again.”
