Real Madrid to attend meeting with Referees Committee to discuss Espanyol red card controversy

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Football Espana

·17 February 2025

Real Madrid to attend meeting with Referees Committee to discuss Espanyol red card controversy

Whether they get closure or not is another matter, but Real Madrid will today find out how the officials made the decision not to intervene following Carlos Romero’s challenge on Kylian Mbappe and upgrade his punishment to a red card. The decision was described as scandalous by Los Blancos.

After the decision, Real Madrid sent a letter to the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) President Rafael Louzan, calling the refereeing system ‘corrupt, manipulated’ and accusing them of ‘robbing trophies from the club’. That was met with a formal complaint by La Liga, but has received little public response to the matter from the RFEF. Los Blancos then declined to attend a meeting with other clubs, La Liga, the referees and the RFEF to discuss improvements in officiating.

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However on Monday they will attend a meeting with the Referees Committee (CTA) to listen to the audio in the VAR’s room after Romero’s challenge on Mbappe. Cadena SER say that General Manager Jose Angel Sanchez and Secretary of the Board Jose Luis del Valle Perez will visit RFEF headquarters to discuss with the Head of the CTA Luis Medina Cantalejo, Head of VAR Carlos Clos Gomez, and the Vice-President Antonio Rubinos to discuss the matter, and make their complaints over recent decisions heard.

Photo by Alex Caparros / Getty Images

During the audio, Angel Sanchez is expected to hear that the VAR decided not to intervene because, as was posited by the fourth official at the time, the fact Romero did not make full contact with Mbappe, meaning they felt it was a yellow card rather than red. Diario AS note that Real Madrid President Florentino Perez has already made his personal frustration clear to Louzan. Relevo also note that this is common practice in La Liga, and many other clubs have been invited to Las Rozas to listen to audio from games. The CTA are content to discuss decisions and refereeing, but in private and away from the media spotlight.