In a scathing opinion piece published by Spanish newspaper AS under the headline Tomás Roncero launches a blistering critique of Spain’s refereeing setup, accusing it of perpetuating “historical injustice” against Real Madrid and arguing that the recent Girona controversy is merely the latest chapter in what he calls “the Negreira legacy”.
The piece began:
“Despair crept into the Madridistas’ hearts after the Mallorca defeat, when the La Liga title seemed to have slipped away.”
A home win over Girona would have reapplied the pressure on Barcelona and kept alive hopes of a late push, perhaps aided by Espanyol in the Camp Nou derby. Instead, Spanish football appears intent on revisiting its past.
In a round that felt like a retroactive tribute to controversy, the officiating crew appeared to honour José María Enríquez Negreira—the former referee and later vice-president of the Referees’ Committee who had long favoured Barcelona, even pocketing millions from the Catalan club.
In any other league that respects its rules, Barcelona would have been relegated and stripped of titles, as Juventus was; here in Spain, the “legacy” endures.
Then came the 88th minute against Girona: the clear penalty on Kylian Mbappé that any child could have pointed out.
Alberola might have missed Vitor Reis’s challenge, but what about Daniel Jesús Troguello Suárez, staring at the incident on VAR monitors in Las Rozas?
Trujillo saw Mbappé bleeding and reviewed the footage in cold blood, yet he chose to do nothing. This was not a case of blindness or deafness; it was a deliberate failure to act. Even Real Madrid’s detractors could not explain this farce, and our phones filled with messages of astonishment.
The same official, who hails from Tenerife—where Madrid controversially lost two titles in the 1990s—has now twice frustrated the club’s ambitions: last season he denied Real three penalties in Pamplona, and today he finished the job.
By turning a blind eye to Gerard Martin’s controversial sending-off in the Madrid derby and then ignoring fresh refereeing errors today, the powers that be have, regrettably, undermined the league’s integrity. The May ‘Clásico’ now feels meaningless: the title was decided in boardrooms and backrooms long before it was settled on the pitch.