VAR officials under investigation after Barcelona-Girona controversy

The VAR officials are under formal investigation following the highly controversial clash between Barcelona and Girona.

The decisive moments at Montilivi are under scrutiny as the debate intensifies around how a high‑stakes La Liga clash was managed in the closing stages.

What was initially framed as a gritty comeback and a clinical late winner has gradually turned into a talking point about technology, protocols, and whether VAR truly fulfilled its purpose on the night.

At the heart of the storm is the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), which believes that VAR made a clear error in the sequence leading to Girona’s winning goal, as reported by Mundo Deportivo.

The controversy centres on a stamp by an opposition player on Jules Kounde during the build‑up to Girona’s second strike, an action described internally as “evident” and firmly part of the same attacking move.

On‑field referee César Soto Grado allowed play to continue, and crucially, VAR official David Gálvez did not intervene to send him to the monitor, even after the move concluded with the decisive goal.

Within the referees’ committee, the stance is that this situation falls squarely under the intervention criteria laid out at the start of the season.

The incident is not considered a grey area or a matter of subjective interpretation, but a clear infraction that, if missed on the pitch, must be flagged by VAR for review.

In their view, there were sufficient grounds to disallow Girona’s second goal, and the failure to act represents a breakdown in the established protocol.

The matter is now effectively under internal review, with the CTA continuing its ongoing process of refining and tightening VAR intervention guidelines on a weekly basis.

For Barcelona and their supporters, that will be little consolation; for the referees’ body, it is another high‑profile test of how transparently and rigorously they handle a VAR error on one of the season’s most decisive nights.