Released VAR conversation reveals why Barcelona midfielder was shown a red card against Sevilla | OneFootball

FC Barcelona took the full three points from their away game against Sevilla last night, as goals from Robert Lewandowski, Fermin Lopez, Raphinha, and Eric Garcia allowed the Catalans to get a 1-4 win in this game.

However, getting this win was not really easy, particularly so because the Blaugranes had to play a major part of the second half with only 10 men on the pitch.

The midfielder Fermin Lopez was initially shown a yellow card by the referee for a harsh challenge on Djibril Sow, but after a VAR review, this card was turned to red and the player was expelled.

Naturally, the expulsion was quite controversial as the Barcelona faithful believed the red card shown was rather harsh.

Amid this controversy, MARCA reports that the conversation between the referee Hernandez Hernandez and the in charge of VAR for this game, Carlos del Cerro Grande, has been released. The conversation between the two officials took place as follows:

“Alejandro, I recommend a review for a potential serious rough play.”

“He goes in with a high leg, and his leg bends… in our opinion, his leg gets caught and twists dangerously for the Sevilla player.”

The on-pitch referee, Hernandez Hernandez replies:

“He goes in very hard. Loss of body control. That is dangerous. Perfect… I’m going to change the yellow card for number 16 to a red.”

The VAR images for the foul show Fermin Lopez’s studs to be upturned, but it was not clear whether he had hit Sow with these studs.

However, MARCA went on to publish the opinion of a former referee, Perez Burull, for whom it was the right decision to expel Lopez. He argues the height of the midfielder’s boot was quite high, which justifies the red card, and if his boot had been lower, a yellow card would have sufficed.