Tomás Guasch Critiques La Liga Refereeing and VAR System
Tomás Guasch did not hold back. After Real Madrid’s 1–0 defeat to Real Betis, the veteran Spanish journalist tore into La Liga’s refereeing and, above all, its use of VAR.
“They rewind until they find something”
Speaking on YouTube with content creator Ricardo Ramos Nera, in remarks later carried by Defensa Central, Guasch painted a picture of a system obsessed with finding ways to rule out Real Madrid goals.
“With every Real goal that doesn't come from a shot from 40 metres, they replay the footage on VAR and look for an excuse to disallow it. There must be someone whose only job is to follow the Madrid goals,” he said.
“They replay the footage. They rewind two or three times until they find that the player was in an offside position,” he continued. “I'm telling you they wouldn't disallow this goal if it were for another team. It goes on like that, replay after replay, until they finally find a pass in which the player was ahead.”
Guasch, one of the few journalists who still openly hammers away at the Negreira case, has made a habit of questioning the refereeing establishment. This time, his fury centred on a single moment in Seville.
The EspÍ header that changed everything
In the 87th minute at the Benito Villamarín, Carlos Espí thought he had rescued something for Real Madrid. A superb header, powered home after a pass from Vinícius on the right, looked to have levelled the match.
On the pitch, referee Hernández Hernández gave the goal. Up in the booth, Iglesias Villanueva and his VAR team went to work.
Minutes later, the decision came: offside. Goal disallowed.
For Guasch, that was the breaking point.
“Now you have someone up there, and I don't know how many assistants are alongside him, and three or four screens in front of him. There can be no mistake. No, they say ‘he interpreted it’...” he raged.
“Stop interpreting, and stop twisting the language in this way, and talking about grey areas, the intensity of the challenge, and excessive force... all of this is a distortion of reality.”
The Cadena COPE voice and El Debate columnist then delivered his harshest verdict.
“They act in bad faith, and I am absolutely certain of that.”
“VAR commandos” and the missed Mbappé penalty retake
Guasch did not just stick to the offside. He also went after the decision not to order a retake of Kylian Mbappé’s missed penalty, after Marc Bartra encroached into the area before the Frenchman struck the ball.
Nor did he dilute his language.
“In front of you, you have your sporting opponent, then you have the biggest enemies, and those are these people, especially the VAR men, isn't that right?” he said. “When I say VAR commandos, that's the truth.”
On the Mbappé incident, his accusation was crystal clear.
“They don't retake the penalty because they don't want to,” he stated. “The person up there already knows what he has to do, and they have invented a rule... They have violated the international rule, and on top of that it goes against common sense.”
Guasch then broke down why Bartra’s encroachment, in his view, was decisive.
“Bartra... does he affect the play? Yes, because he's the player who arrives to prevent or obstruct Mbappé's shot, and therefore... listen to me carefully... you said a month ago that this is a penalty and it must be retaken, so why do you interfere in this case?”
The complaint was not only about one match. It was about consistency, about trust, about who really runs a game once the referee blows his whistle.
“Who holds the decision?”
For Guasch, the answer is no longer on the pitch.
“So who holds the decision in refereeing? The person on the video technology, and that's it. Nothing more than that,” he concluded.
Coming from a former deputy editor-in-chief of AS and ex-columnist for Marca, now a prominent voice at Cadena COPE and El Debate, the message lands with weight: in his eyes, La Liga’s battles are no longer just between clubs, but between teams and the unseen hands in the VAR room.
