What happened between the referee and the VAR room? Intriguing details from the Real Madrid v Racing match
VAR did not intervene on Mbappé's penalty!
Real Madrid's 3-0 win over Racing Santander in the 11th round of the Spanish league came with a striking refereeing controversy attached. Referee Jose Luis Munuera Montero reversed his decision to award the hosts a penalty in the 71st minute, following a handball by France's Aurelien Tchouameni inside the area, after the video assistant referee ("VAR") intervened.
This was not the first incident to grip fans at the "El Sardinero" stadium. Earlier, the referee had awarded Kylian Mbappe a penalty in the 11th minute after contact with Racing's Mateo Prati, and the French star tucked it away to open the scoring. The home supporters objected furiously, not least because VAR stayed out of it.
The Tchouameni incident began when Munuera Montero pointed to the spot, his assistant having flagged a handball inside the area. Then the video room, led by Luis Mario Mila, stepped in and asked him to take another look. "Jose Luis, I advise you to review the penalty you awarded, please," Mila told him.
Heading to the review screen, the referee made a point of reassuring Racing coach Jose Alberto that he would examine the play himself, before asking the video room to clarify how the ball had been played.
"I want to see how the ball was played," Munuera Montero asked. Mila explained that Tchouameni had played the ball deliberately before it struck his hand. The referee then asked for clearer footage, with improved lighting and a longer replay, so he could study the detail.
Mid-review, Munuera Montero asked whether a Racing player had touched the ball. The answer was no.
Having watched it again, he concluded that Tchouameni had played the ball himself and that it had rebounded onto his hand without any opponent getting involved. In his judgement, there was no penalty.
So he reversed his first call and scrubbed the spot-kick. That decision enraged the Racing fans in the stands, whose protests spilled over to the point of a lighter being hurled onto the pitch.
The call rests on a refereeing principle: a ball striking a defender's hand after he has deliberately played it himself is not automatically an offence, provided the contact was unintentional. The position of the hand, the nature of the movement and the circumstances of the play all come into it.
