Tomás Guasch Critiques La Liga Referees and VAR System

Tomás Guasch has lit into La Liga’s referees, using Real Madrid’s defeat to Real Betis as the latest exhibit in what he sees as a broken system.

Madrid lost 1–0, but the result was only part of the story. For Guasch, the real damage came from the video booth.

“They rewind until they find something”

Speaking on YouTube with content creator Ricardo Ramos Nera, and quoted by Defensa Central, the veteran Spanish journalist painted a picture of VAR officials almost hunting for reasons to rule out Real Madrid goals.

“With every Real goal that doesn't come from a shot from 40 metres, they replay the footage on VAR and look for an excuse to disallow it. There must be someone whose only job is to follow the Madrid goals,” he said.

“They replay the footage. They rewind two or three times until they find that the player was in an offside position,” he continued. “I'm telling you they wouldn't disallow this goal if it were for another team. It goes on like that, replay after replay, until they finally find a pass in which the player was ahead.”

Guasch, one of the few journalists who still regularly attacks the handling of the Negreira case, used Sunday’s controversy as fresh ammunition.

The Espí offside that lit the fuse

His fury centred on the offside decision against Carlos Espí in the 87th minute against Betis. The forward rose to meet a Vinícius cross from the right and powered in what looked like a crucial late equaliser.

On the pitch, referee Hernández Hernández gave the goal. Up in the booth, Iglesias Villanueva, in charge of VAR, saw it differently. Minutes later, the goal was gone.

For Guasch, that sequence summed up everything.

“Now you have someone up there, and I don't know how many assistants are alongside him, and three or four screens in front of him. There can be no mistake. No, they say ‘he interpreted it’...” he argued. “Stop interpreting, and stop twisting the language in this way, and talking about grey areas, the intensity of the challenge, and excessive force... all of this is a distortion of reality.”

The Cadena COPE pundit and El Debate columnist did not soften the accusation.

“They act in bad faith, and I am absolutely certain of that,” he said.

“In front of you, you have your sporting opponent, then you have the biggest enemies, and those are these people, especially the VAR men, isn't that right? When I say VAR commandos, that's the truth.”

Mbappé’s penalty and a “rule they invented”

Guasch then moved to another flashpoint from the same match: Kylian Mbappé’s missed penalty. Marc Bartra encroached into the area before the French forward struck the ball, yet the kick was not ordered to be retaken.

For Guasch, that was no oversight.

“They don't retake the penalty because they don't want to,” he said bluntly. “The person up there already knows what he has to do, and they have invented a rule... They have violated the international rule, and on top of that it goes against common sense.”

He broke down the incident in detail.

“Bartra... does he affect the play? Yes, because he's the player who arrives to prevent or obstruct Mbappé's shot, and therefore... listen to me carefully... you said a month ago that this is a penalty and it must be retaken, so why do you interfere in this case?”

For Guasch, the inconsistency is not just technical. It is deliberate.

“Who really decides?”

The former deputy editor-in-chief of AS, who also worked as a columnist for Marca, finished by questioning where power truly lies in Spanish refereeing.

“So who holds the decision in refereeing? The person on the video technology, and that's it. Nothing more than that.”

In his eyes, La Liga matches are no longer decided solely on the grass, but on those screens, in those booths, by those “VAR commandos” he no longer trusts.