BARCELONA: Spanish league president Javier Tebas lashed out at Real Madrid on Thursday, saying the club leadership has “lost its mind” for accusing Spain’s referees of being biased against the defending champion.
The head of La Liga said it was considering taking legal action for the letter that Madrid published this week in which they accused the league of being “adulterated” to favor other clubs.
Tebas told reporters, “They have built up an exaggerated tale of victimization that is completely baseless with, in my opinion, the goal of undermining the competition. It is completely over the top. They have lost their minds.”
The letter was sent two days after Madrid felt they were hurt by alleged refereeing mistakes in a 1-0 loss at Espanyol. Madrid mostly complained of a hard foul on Kylian Mbappé by Espanyol defender Carlos Romero in the 60th minute. Romero was shown a yellow card but Madrid felt he should have been sent off with a straight red card. Romero went on to score the winner.
After a video review, the officiating crew considered the yellow card was appropriate. Madrid said in their four-page letter that the performance of the VAR and the officiating crew was “scandalous.”
The club said the refereeing in the Espanyol game represented the “culmination of a completely discredited refereeing system whose decisions against Real Madrid have reached a point that the adulteration and manipulation of the competition cannot be ignored.”
Also, Madrid published a four-minute video on their club website titled “The global scandal continues to escalate” of clips of the foul by Romero on Mbappé and quotes for media outlets that considered it worth of a red card.
Tebas hit back at Real Madrid’s club television for routinely producing video packages that allegedly showed how certain referees made calls against the team. He said Real Madrid TV “calls referees corrupt.”
Madrid collected their 36th Spanish league title and their 15th European Cup – both records – last season. They lead La Liga by one point before playing second-placed Atletico Madrid on Saturday.
Rival fans — and most neutrals — have been puzzled by Madrid’s complaints about being systematically hurt by the refs.
“It’s just silly,” Atletico forward Antoine Griezmann said about the letter.
“We have to leave the referees alone. They have enough on their hands dealing with us players to on top of that have to handle this silliness from off the pitch.”
La Liga president slams Real Madrid for complaints about referees
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La Liga president slams Real Madrid for complaints about referees
- Tebas told reporters, “They have built up an exaggerated tale of victimization that is completely baseless with, in my opinion, the goal of undermining the competition”
- The letter was sent two days after Madrid felt they were hurt by alleged refereeing mistakes in a 1-0 loss at Espanyol
Qatar’s Al-Attiyah wins Stage 6 for Dacia, retakes Dakar lead
- Al-Attiyah, 55, has now completed 19 successive Dakars with at least one stage win every time
RIYADH: Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah will lead the Dakar Rally into its second and final week after winning the sixth stage in the Saudi desert on Friday to take over at the top from South African rival Henk Lategan.
Al-Attiyah, a five-time Dakar winner now competing for the Dacia Sandriders, had been second overnight but turned a deficit of more than three minutes into a 6 minutes and 10 second advantage over the 326km timed stage between Hail and Riyadh.
Saturday is a rest day before the rally resumes in Riyadh on Sunday with seven more stages to the finish in Yanbu on the Red Sea coast on Jan. 17.
Al-Attiyah won Friday’s stage by two minutes and 58 seconds from teammate and nine-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb, Dacia’s first Dakar one-two, with Toyota’s American Seth Quintero third.
Overall, three different manufacturers filled podium positions with Toyota’s Lategan second and Ford’s Nani Roma third — his first time on the virtual podium since 2019.
Al-Attiyah, 55, has now completed 19 successive Dakars with at least one stage win every time.
Friday was his career 49th stage win in the car category — one off the record held jointly by Ari Vatanen and “Mr Dakar” Stephane Peterhansel.
Spaniard Carlos Sainz, father of the Formula One driver and a four-time Dakar winner still racing hard at the age of 63, was in fourth place for Ford with teammate Mattias Ekstrom fifth and Loeb sixth.
American Mitch Guthrie, stage winner on Thursday for Ford, dropped to seventh from sixth.
In the motorcycle category there was no change at the top, although leader and defending champion Daniel Sanders was handed a 6-minute penalty for riding at 98kph in a zone limited to 50kph.
KTM rider Sanders now leads Honda’s American Ricky Brabec, the stage winner after the Australian’s penalty, by 45 seconds with Argentine rider Luciano Benavides more than 10 minutes behind in third.
“It was an emotional rollercoaster all day. Unfortunately, I got a speeding penalty, so that will set me back a bit,” said Sanders.
“I just pushed as much as I could today but it’s hard to do good in the sand, especially opening. I did the best I could and I’ve got to stop making silly mistakes. I haven’t pieced this first week together so well.”
