"Were the clips of Güler's incident with the Sevilla player hidden?": La Liga breaks its silence
In a statement
Arda Güler's clash with Sevilla's Peque has reignited controversy in Spanish football. Television footage failed to settle what really happened in a challenge that had some demanding the Real Madrid man be sent off, and the key camera angles were nowhere to be found, just days out from the eagerly awaited Clasico.
LaLiga denied hiding any footage from the replays. The cameras, they insisted, were trained on the ball and the flow of the attack rather than on an incident unfolding in another part of the pitch. That account chimes with the version attributed to the referees' technical committee.
Tension returned to Spanish football ahead of Barcelona's meeting with Real Madrid, with accusations and criticism aimed at the refereeing bodies and league president Javier Tebas. Why the video assistant referee failed to step in became the burning question, given the absence of a clear image of the challenge.
Why did VAR not intervene in the Güler incident?
Sources told the newspaper that the missing footage came down to camera positioning. Most lenses were following the attack while the incident happened elsewhere, well away from where the operators were pointing.
AS quoted LaLiga confirming they had withheld no television replay. The broadcast included shots from elevated angles, but the location of the incident meant no close, clear image of the contact could be provided.
The referees' technical committee pinned the problem on a shortage of cameras covering the middle of the pitch. A refereeing source explained that no clear shot of the point of contact existed, and that is what stopped VAR from intervening.
Another source said the available footage showed the incident from distance, lacking the clarity to establish the nature of the contact or even which player was involved. Confirming an offence worthy of a red card proved impossible.
The absence of images could settle the decision either way
Here is the twist. The shortage of footage did not only shape the decision to keep the red card in the referee's pocket. It would also have tied VAR's hands had the referee produced one, because the images on hand were not enough to justify overturning the call or downgrading the punishment.
The episode left the referees' technical committee squirming, all the more so because it happened at the Santiago Bernabeu, a ground packed with cameras, just as LaLiga pushes to sharpen the quality of its television coverage and make it a selling point of the competition.
The committee may view it as an isolated incident, yet it raises real worries about whether the broadcast can deliver enough angles for referees in contentious cases. This is not the first time the problem has surfaced this season.
The newspaper pointed back to a similar case during Alaves against Getafe. Poor image quality and a lack of camera angles left VAR struggling, and the referees had to make do with distant shots that hid much of the detail.
