Eric García's reaction to the VAR intervention: "Why review..."

FC Barcelona defeated Unión Deportiva Las Palmas (0-2) despite the poor performance of referees Cordero Vega (main) and Del Cerro Grande (VAR). In addition to letting a possible penalty on Raphinha go and multiple fouls in favor of Barça, the referees inexplicably stopped the match for more than four minutes to review a handball in the area by Eric García.

Although the ball had hit the left arm of the Barça center-back, there was clearly an offside by Álex Muñoz, who also touched the ball with his hand in the same action. Del Cerro Grande called Cordero Vega to review the play on the monitor, and the main referee ended up adding eight minutes to compensate for the delay of a completely unnecessary review, as the semi-automatic offside was more than enough to settle the controversy.

"We don’t understand why they make him review the play when they already know it’s offside, the play would have ended there", Eric García began saying in an interview for 'TV3'. In that sense, he added: "After this week, it’s normal for everything to be reviewed a bit...", referring to the pressure from Real Madrid on the referees. 

The VAR capture in the action of Eric García's hand. Photo: 'Movistar+'.

The unusual response from the referee to the Las Palmas coach regarding the VAR intervention

However, the most striking aspect of the entire controversy surrounding the VAR intervention was Cordero Vega's explanation to coach Diego Martínez after consulting the monitor. "It’s well executed, because if there wasn’t an offside, it would have been a foul...", said the main referee to the coach of the Canary team. In that sense, the coach asked the referee what the need was to prolong the review so much. The Cantabrian referee's response was astonishing.

"So that people know, so they don’t think that it’s not...", said Cordero Vega. Well, the stance of LaLiga referees now seems to point towards reviewing every controversial action in detail, even when this ends up generating more confusion and loss of time. LaLiga launched its campaign this matchday to combat referee harassment, but game after game, the referees do not seem to be helping much.