Referee told Barcelona dressing room the truth about denied penalty against Inter Milan last night.
Barcelona suffered an unexpected 1-0 loss to Inter Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday night at the San Siro.
While losing twice in a row in Europe was undoubtedly newsworthy, another story was how a clear handball by Denzel Dumfries late in the game was not called a penalty for the visitors.
The hosts were found to be flawless in what appeared to be a stonewall penalty, even though VAR initially viewed the ruling as favoring Inter. The Catalan team questioned the referee about the decision not to award them a spot-kick after the game.
Journalist Santi Ovalle quoted him as saying, “VAR told me it wasn’t a penalty, but no explanation to support the judgment was explained” (h/t Reshad Rahman).
In the end, this is a criticism of VAR as a whole, which rightly has caused controversy since its implementation in European football.
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As a result, in his post-game interview, Xavi was visibly upset with the delayed call, saying, “I’m unhappy. We don’t understand anything, thus the referees need to explain their decisions.
After the game, I requested the referee to justify his choices, but he declined. We experienced injustice today.
Barcelona was not given a penalty after Ousmane Dembele was obviously fouled inside the box in their previous Champions League match against Bayern Munich.
The fact that Dumfries’ unsuccessful attempt to head the ball out of danger, which resulted in the unintentional handball, was not viewed as a clear-cut decision, however, must be acknowledged as shockingly poor officiating.
Barcelona needs to act as if the decision never happened and work to finally advance to the round of 16.
