David Sánchez, a journalist with Spain's "Radio Marca", has launched a scathing attack on the refereeing during Real Madrid's clash with Sevilla, arguing that the failure to send off Turkey's Arda Güler shaped the entire course of a match Los Blancos won 4-1 at the Santiago Bernabéu in La Liga.
Speaking in his usual "Picotazos" column on the programme "La Tribu", Sánchez claimed Sevilla were the victims of a major refereeing injustice. He refused to reduce the row to a problem with the television production or the broadcast footage. What happened, he insisted, was a glaring error that harmed the Andalusian side.
"However much they try to disguise what happened on Saturday against Sevilla as a television production error, it was a blatant robbery and a mockery by Real Madrid of Luis García Plaza's team," the Spanish journalist said in a sharp criticism of the decisions on show.
Arda Güler at the heart of the crisis
Güler's escape from a red card became the focus of Sánchez's criticism. He saw the decision as the turning point of the whole match. "After Güler was not sent off, everything changed and nothing else mattered," he said.
He defended the right of Sevilla and their fans to object, stressing the team suffered real harm. The controversy, he argued, cannot be waved away or justified by talk of television broadcasting problems.
Conspiracy theories against Real Madrid
The "Radio Marca" journalist also took aim at the escalating row over refereeing and VAR, along with the conspiracy theories pushed by some of those aligned with Real Madrid. Keeping up these accusations so early in the season, he reckons, only ramps up the tension around the competition.
Refereeing errors do not necessarily mean a particular team is being deliberately targeted, Sánchez said. "This is not about conspiracies against Real Madrid. Referees make mistakes, sometimes in your favour and sometimes against you."
Barcelona benefit from some controversial calls too, he pointed out, but he criticised how differently Real Madrid fans read those cases. They may treat decisions favouring Barcelona as proof of the continuing fallout from the Negreira case.
Mutual accusations between Spain's two giants
Sánchez went further still. Real Madrid and Barcelona are the two clubs that benefit most from refereeing decisions, he argued, and he claimed the Madrid side have historically taken the biggest share of that help. Those remarks lay bare his personal stance on the ongoing row over Spanish refereeing.
He closed by insisting that the events of the Sevilla match actually weaken the claims of a refereeing conspiracy against Real Madrid. The controversy will be back, he predicted, the moment Los Blancos drop their first bad result, with tension between the two clubs and the referees showing no sign of easing.