Spanish football has been rocked by another referee controversy after a former referee claimed that the Spanish Refereeing Committee (CTA) installed a second, secret video review system unbeknownst to LaLiga, Spanish clubs, and the general public. Xavier Estrada Fernandez, the referee that has made the accusation, quit his job as a referee when the Negreira case broke earlier this year, leading to the head of the Spanish Referees Committee, Luis Medina Cantalejo, calling him a “coward.” Later at a press conference calling it, “the dirtiest thing I've seen in 40 years.”
Estrada Fernandez spoke to A Diario on Radio MARCA revealing the details of an undisclosed second VAR room used for high-profile fixtures, which involved the presence of leading refereeing figures. “It is a room that has been used for several years by the Committee. There are two rooms. A room for the Hawk Eye, who are the technicians and operators of the VAR. And an operations room that is not reflected in the Federation's statutes, nor in the VAR protocol, nor in our employment contracts,” Estrada Fernandez explained. According to the retired referee, the room was introduced in the 2019/20 season for major games such as El Clasico between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. He says that those present in the room included the aforementioned Luis Medina Cantalejo, Carlos Velasco Carballo, who led the VAR project in Spanish soccer, and Carlos Clos Gomez, who also held a senior role in the leadership of the introduction of VAR. What will make the accusation more concerning is that Estrada Fernandez continues to explain that "they created this room without explaining it publicly to LaLiga or the clubs" while insisting that the fact “that there has been communication [between the two VAR rooms] is clear.” There are clear similarities between this and some of the approaches that been made public by the Spanish Soccer Federation (RFEF). In 2021/22, a Director of Operations was appointed to watch matches live and to monitor the usage of VAR, with the two directors of operations being Clos Gomez and Undiano Mallenco. At the time of its introduction, it was claimed that they could supervise VAR, but without any communication with either on-field or VAR officials. However, in 2022/23, this was extended to other current referees, who were not compensated financially for fulfilling the role of Director of Operations, which was later changed to Reserve VAR.
The RFEF reacted to the accusations with a strong statement, which reads as follows: “In order to categorically deny and clarify some recent publication, we would like to inform that the VOR space at the Football City in Las Rozas of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, which has been shown on many occasions to both professional clubs and the media in an exercise of absolute transparency, consists of seven closed VAR rooms, a space with five VAR stations and two additional rooms. In the first additional room, technicians from technology provider Hawk-Eye are in charge of the technical management of the matches (preparation of the matches with television production, software management, server control, etc.). The second, called the VAR Reserves Room, houses an extra VAR referee for each of the matches, whose functions are to monitor the match and be ready to replace the VAR or AVAR in the event of a medical problem. This person provides the CTA with immediate information on any technical problems in the matches or extraordinary incidents (weather problems, crowd mishaps, etc.), but they never interact with the VAR or AVAR of the match except to inform them that the offside lines sent to the TV production have not been shown in the program, since it is the latter who decides whether or not to incorporate them into the broadcast. La Liga has been aware of these spaces since the very moment of their creation. Moreover, both the current member appointed by La Liga to the Arbitration Committee for Professional Competition, Arturo Dauden Ibanez, and his predecessor, Antonio Lopez Nieto, have repeatedly visited these rooms and are fully aware of the use made of them. It is also pertinent to remember that the existence and use of these additional rooms is common in international FIFA and UEFA competitions, as well as in the main European leagues. Finally, the CTA would like to remind that the images and audios generated in the VOR during the match are recorded.”
Source: Forbes
