Tomás Guasch Critiques VAR Decisions in La Liga

Tomás Guasch did not hold back. After Real Madrid’s 1–0 defeat to Real Betis, the veteran Spanish journalist tore into La Liga’s refereeing and, above all, the men in the VAR booth.

“They look for an excuse to disallow every Madrid goal”

Speaking with content creator Ricardo Ramos Nera on YouTube, and later quoted by Defensa Central, Guasch painted a picture of a league where every Real Madrid celebration is treated with suspicion.

“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. 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 consistently attacks the Negreira case, framed Sunday’s controversy as part of a broader pattern rather than an isolated mistake.

The EspÍ goal that lit the fuse

His fury centred on the 87th-minute header from Carlos Espí against Betis, a moment that briefly looked like salvation for Madrid.

Espí met a cross from Vinícius on the right with a superb header. On the pitch, referee Hernández Hernández pointed to the centre circle. Goal given. Up in the booth, Iglesias Villanueva and his VAR team got to work. Minutes later, the decision was overturned for offside.

For Guasch, that delay and reversal summed up everything he believes is wrong.

“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’... 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,” he argued.

The journalist, who works with Cadena COPE and writes for El Debate, stripped away any nuance.

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

“VAR commandos” and the missed Mbappé penalty retake

Guasch went further, claiming that for players and coaches, the real threat is not the opponent in front of them, but the officials on the screens.

“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?” he said. “When I say VAR commandos, that's the truth.”

He also highlighted another flashpoint: Kylian Mbappé’s missed penalty, with Marc Bartra entering the area early before the Frenchman struck the ball. The spot-kick stood, the miss counted, and there was no retake.

“They don't retake the penalty because they don't want to,” Guasch said, accusing the officials of bending the laws.

“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 then 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 spent years writing for Marca, closed with a stark conclusion about power and control in Spanish football.

“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’s most decisive figure no longer wears boots or even steps onto the pitch. He sits in front of a bank of monitors, finger on the replay button, with the balance of a season in his hands.