More than 24 hours before Barcelona and Real Madrid meet in the clasico, the Spanish giants’ official television channel has intensified its criticism of refereeing, presenting a series of incidents it believes demonstrate a repeated bias in favour of the Catalan club.
Real Madrid TV placed refereeing decisions at the centre of its coverage ahead of the much-anticipated fixture at Camp Nou, comparing red cards, disallowed goals and penalties awarded to both teams in recent years.
According to Catalan newspaper Sport, the channel began by comparing the number of dismissals since 2000.
“Since 2000, 12 Barcelona players have been sent off, compared with 23 from our side, almost double, which is not normal when you watch many of the clips,” it said.
The channel also used a mocking and insulting nickname for Barcelona that combined the club’s name with the video assistant referee system, VAR. It then highlighted incidents involving Sergio Busquets, Gavi and Frenkie de Jong, arguing that some of their challenges should have resulted in red cards.
The criticism then moved to disallowed goals, with Real Madrid TV presenting figures it said showed a disparity in decision-making between the two clubs.
“Four goals have been disallowed for Barcelona, compared with 20 for Real Madrid. Goals have been wrongly disallowed for us, while goals have wrongly been given to them. It is a scandal,” the channel said.
It accused referees of allowing Barcelona goals to stand despite preceding offside decisions or fouls, while claiming that valid Real Madrid goals had been ruled out.
Penalty decisions were also examined, with the channel arguing that Real Madrid had been denied several spot-kicks while Barcelona had benefited from penalties awarded after players allegedly went down too easily.
“There are many penalties that have not been given to us, while they award penalties because of claims for going down,” it said.
Real Madrid TV then broadened its criticism to clasicos, claiming there had been “refereeing irregularities in clasico matches, always in the same direction”.
The channel suggested this represented a recurring pattern of decisions favouring Barcelona, before using another sarcastic line to describe the impact of its own coverage on supporters.
“Watching our videos is harmful to the health of Real Madrid fans, given all these abnormal incidents,” it said.
Negreira reference
The Negreira case was brought back into the discussion at the end of the broadcast, when the channel said: “They were the ones who paid the money.”
The remark referred to payments made by Barcelona to a company linked to Jose Maria Negreira, the former official in Spain’s refereeing committee.
Real Madrid TV concluded its attack by mocking images that show Barcelona players alongside referees.
“Jose Mota can make the videos that bring Barcelona players and referees together,” it said, referring to the Spanish comedian.
