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Official statement

RCD Espanyol de Barcelona wishes to express its disagreement and concern with the refereeing actions received throughout the season and, especially, with the disparity in refereeing criteria in the application of VAR.

We understand that different errors in the use of VAR technology have notably harmed our team, something that is more than evident in the last two matches. In the previous one, against Girona FC, a penalty awarded by the referee against our player, Vinicius de Souza, at the end of the match, was not reviewed by VAR despite the fact that there was no punishable action in the area; Today, however, VAR did intervene to rule out a legal goal by Martin Braithwaite in the 43rd minute of RCD Espanyol vs Athletic Club, pointing out a supposed and improbable handball by Joselu Mato in the buildup. However, what the VAR images confirm is that the striker is clearly grabbed by the arm by the Athletic Club player, Vivian, inside the area and, as a consequence, the ball hits his hand, making it impossible to have done so without intervention. Nor was it considered appropriate today to show the second booking and therefore the dismissal of Dani García in the 42nd minute of the game when he stopped, without any option to challenge for the ball, a counter-attack by our team in which the law of advantage is applied.

We are talking about decisive actions for the final result of the last two games. Actions that are added to comparative grievances such as those suffered on matchday 2 against Rayo Vallecano in which VAR intervened to send off Sergi Gómez for an alleged shove on an opposition player, or on matchday 7 against Valencia, in which the one sent off for identical action, also after a VAR review, was Martin Braithwaite. VAR did not consider it appropriate to review an identical action on matchday 19 in Almería when the victim of the action was Braithwaite himself. A match in which we had the dubious honour of attending the first review on the field by the referee of a millimetre offside several passes before an action that ended in a clear penalty on Edu Expósito, which also would have led to the sending off of César De La Hoz.

Once again, and despite the match ending in victory, the match against Real Betis on matchday 18 meant a disallowed goal for Aleix Vidal due to an alleged prior foul by Javi Puado. Puado was grabbed by an opposition player in the area before, in an attempt to try to get rid of it, accidentally hit the face of that same player. VAR did not intervene there either.

And a long list of actions in which the common denominator is the disparate criteria when it comes to using or not the existing VAR technology and the clear prejudice, in our opinion, of our interests.

We do not intend to excuse our own mistakes in arbitration, which are the ones that mainly place us in a complex sporting situation at the end of the season. We are and will be respectful of the difficult refereeing work and we have shown exquisite empathy so far in the competition despite having repeatedly felt that criteria and decisions were elusive. But we cannot remain impassive before a situation of objective damage and disparate criteria in the use of technology and in the application of the regulation.