LaLiga have reported Real Madrid‘s formal complaint over referees — which condemned the current system as “completely discredited” and being subject to “manipulation and adulteration” — to the Spanish football federation (RFEF) disciplinary committee, the league confirmed on Tuesday.
Madrid sent an angry open letter to the federation (RFEF) last week, criticising the referee’s decisions in their 1-0 LaLiga defeat at Espanyol on Feb. 1, and asking for audio recordings of conversations between the on-field offical and VAR to be released.
Referee Alejandro Muñiz Ruiz and video assistant referee Javier Iglesias Villanueva had opted not to show a red card to defender Carlos Romero for a foul on Kylian Mbappé, and Romero went on to score the game’s only goal, while the officials also disallowed an earlier goal by Vinícius Júnior.
The four-page letter sent by Madrid’s board said that the decisions “exceeded any margin for human error or refereeing interpretation” describing the game as “the culmination of a completely discredited refereeing system” and accusing Muñiz of “distorting and falsifying the reality of what happened.”
LaLiga president Javier Tebas then accused Madrid of having “lost their minds” on the issue of refereeing, saying the club had “constructed a narrative of victimhood.”
Tebas warned that LaLiga would be lodging a complaint of their own over Madrid’s claims, a step which the league confirmed it had taken on Tuesday.
“We are going to file a complaint against the club, against the board,” Tebas said on Feb. 6, speaking after a meeting of LaLiga clubs, the federation and the Spanish refereeing committee, which Madrid did not attend. “We are analysing it from a legal point of view because, of course, this type of letter cannot be tolerated.”
Other LaLiga clubs have also condemned Madrid’s approach, with Sevilla president José María del Nido Carrasco accusing them of “trying to destroy Spanish football.”
