FC Barcelona continued their winning run in La Liga on Saturday with a victory over Elche that kept them at the top of the table, narrowly ahead of Real Madrid. However, the margin at the summit remains tight, largely due to the defeat the Catalans suffered two weeks ago against Real Sociedad, a result that reduced the gap between the two rivals to just a single point.
That defeat was quite a controversial one, and the referee for that game, Gil Manzano, faced criticism for several of his decisions, including that of ruling out a Blaugrana goal for an offside, not giving a foul in the build-up to one of La Reale’s goals, and not initially awarding a red card to Carlos Soler for his challenge on Pedri, which was deemed by VAR to be a red card offense later.
Post-match, Frenkie de Jong openly voiced his frustration, criticising the lack of dialogue and the referee’s attitude towards Barcelona’s players, including the captain. The Dutch midfielder also highlighted an incident in which he was booked for questioning time wasting, an episode he felt summed up the imbalance in the officiating.
Importantly, both the red card incident and the foul by Dani Olmo on Kubo prior to Fermin Lopez’s goal were later viewed unfavourably by the Technical Committee of Referees, which believed Gil Manzano failed to make the correct calls in real time.
As a result of this poor performance, SPORT reports that the Spanish referee was not appointed to officiate any game in the latest matchday, which was a technical decision in line with the new policy adopted by the refereeing body, which now awards matches based on meritocracy over reputation or experience.
This is also to some extent a vindication for Barcelona, as the Catalans would have felt hard done by the referee in that game, and would have felt they deserved a better result that night.