There was a lot of talk from opposition fans yesterday that Barcelona were given favourable decisions in their 1-0 win over Rayo Vallecano. 

The first of these controversial decisions was when Hector Fort pulled the shirt of Abdul Mumin, however, after looking at it, VAR determined that it was not an obvious error.

Shortly after, Pathe Ciss brought Inigo Martinez down in the box and after initially not giving it, the referee went over to the monitor and reversed his decision, awarding a penalty to Barca which Robert Lewandowski converted.

Finally, the last major talking point in the game was when Jorge de Frutos had the ball in the back of the net but after a few seconds, the officials disallowed the goal.

At first glance, De Frutos was clearly onside, however, after further inspection, Rayo’s Randy Nteka was in an offside position and stopped Martinez from getting to the ball.

Rayo Vallecano’s President give his verdict

After the game, Vallecano’s President, Martin Brisa, defended the referee’s decision and admitted he made the correct calls.

“We did not lose yesterday because of the referees,” Brisa said in an interview, via Managing Barca.

“We played a great game but we were not precise. We have no doubts about the referees, their decisions were correct.”

Brisa is getting a lot of praise for this statement as recently we have seen many top clubs criticise referee decisions and blame them for losing games. 

Hopefully, his comments can put to bed the narrative that La Liga handed the Blaugrana the game to keep the league competitive.