{"id":48752,"date":"2026-04-15T18:13:47","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=48752"},"modified":"2026-04-15T18:13:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:43:47","slug":"its-unacceptable-what-they-did-to-us-joan-laporta-blasts-referee-and-var-decisions-after-barcelonas-ucl-quarter-final-exit-against-atletico-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/football\/champions-league\/its-unacceptable-what-they-did-to-us-joan-laporta-blasts-referee-and-var-decisions-after-barcelonas-ucl-quarter-final-exit-against-atletico-madrid\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s unacceptable what they did to us\u201d: Joan Laporta blasts referee and VAR decisions after Barcelona\u2019s UCL quarter-final exit against Atletico Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta<\/strong> has strongly criticized the refereeing and VAR<\/strong> decisions in Barcelona\u2019s recent UEFA Champions League quarter-final tie against Atletico Madrid, calling them \u201cunacceptable\u201d and claiming they had a major impact on the outcome.<\/p>\n

In a fiery press conference following the second leg, Laporta expressed deep frustration over a series of controversial calls that he believes disadvantaged Bar\u00e7a across both legs of the tie.<\/p>\n

Laporta\u2019s Key Complaints on Refereeing<\/h3>\n

Laporta highlighted multiple incidents:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • First leg issues<\/strong>: Barcelona were denied a clear penalty, and Pau Cubars\u00ed received a red card for a foul that Laporta argued should have resulted in a red card for the opposing player instead.<\/li>\n
  • Second leg controversies<\/strong>:\n
      \n
    • Eric Garc\u00eda\u2019s straight red card was \u201cwrong.\u201d Laporta insisted Kound\u00e9 was positioned to win the ball cleanly, and Garc\u00eda was not the last man.<\/li>\n
    • Ferran Torres\u2019 second goal was incorrectly disallowed.<\/li>\n
    • A clear penalty on Dani Olmo was not awarded.<\/li>\n
    • Ferm\u00edn L\u00f3pez suffered a significant facial cut with no yellow card shown to the Atletico player.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      \u201cIt\u2019s unacceptable what they did to us. The referee and VAR decisions made a big impact on this UCL round,\u201d Laporta stated.<\/p>\n

      He added: \u201cIn the first leg, we didn\u2019t get a clear penalty and we got a red card when it had to be red on Pau Cubars\u00ed\u2019s foul. Then last night, the red card to Eric Garc\u00eda was wrong. Kound\u00e9 was there ready to win the ball. He wasn\u2019t the last man. Also, it was a wrong decision to disallow Ferran\u2019s second goal and there was a penalty on Dani Olmo. Ferm\u00edn got a big cut on his face\u2026 and not even a yellow card.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Laporta Rejects Bias Claims Against Barcelona<\/h3>\n

      Laporta firmly rejected any notion that Barcelona receives favorable treatment from referees, calling such suggestions \u201cshameless.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u201cWhoever says that Barcelona receives treatment from the referees is shameless,\u201d he declared, pushing back against long-standing narratives surrounding the club.<\/p>\n

      The comments come amid Barcelona\u2019s elimination from the Champions League quarter-finals. The tie featured intense drama, including Eric Garc\u00eda\u2019s late red card in the second leg after a VAR review for a challenge on Alexander S\u00f8rloth, and a tightly called offside that disallowed a potential crucial goal from Ferran Torres.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta has strongly criticized the refereeing and VAR decisions in Barcelona\u2019s recent UEFA Champions League quarter-final\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":48755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4652],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-champions-league"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48756,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48752\/revisions\/48756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}