La Liga referees sacked after Vinicius racism row, red card

Reports from Spain are claiming that the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) made the joint decision with The Technical Committee of Referees to sack six referees in charge of VAR during the hugely controversial match between Real Madrid and Valencia at the Mestalla stadium last Sunday.

The match was marred by the blatant racist abuse of Real Madrid winger Vinicius Jr, who was later sent off with a red card after an altercation with Valencia players.

Blatant racism coming from the Valencia stands

The hostile home crowd at Mestalla started hurling racist abuse at the Brazilian winger inside the opening 20 minutes by making monkey chants. At one point, the match had to be stopped for several minutes when Vinicius stopped playing to confront some Valencia supporters in the stands.

Warnings were issued over the loudspeakers telling fans to stop their racist behaviour, to no avail. If anything, the chants became even louder, with Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti saying that it felt like the entire stadium was shouting "monkey" at his player.

VAR at the centre of the controversy regarding the red card

Apart from the issues coming from the stands, Vinicius was also a victim right on the pitch. He was sent off at stoppage time after allegedly slapping Valencia player Hugo Duro. Unfortunately, the referee made the decision after watching images sent from the VAR room, which were mysteriously extremely clipped down to only show the slight contact between Vinicius and Duro.

The events that led to the "slap" were suspiciously left out of the review by the VAR team.

For those who did not see the incident, Valencia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili attacked Vinicius and both players were restrained by their teammates. However, Duro did not only restrain the Brazilian, he decided to keep him in a choke hold while dragging him away from the keeper.

Numerous social media users shared clips of the incident where Vinicius could be seen with Duros' arm around his neck for around ten seconds. Real Madrid players obviously gathered around the pair to try to help the Brazilian, and when Duro eventually released his choke hold, Vini turned around and swung his arm. Duro then made quite a show of pretending to have been extremely hurt by the contact. It was only this moment that was shown on VAR.

Mamardashbili's initial attack towards Vinicius was left out, as well as the entire period where the Madrid winger was being choked by Duro. Needless to say, both Valencia players walked away without a caution while Vinicius was red carded.

The 22-year-old immediately took to social media after the match to condemn La Liga, saying that the league "belongs to racists." He also lamented that he can no longer defend Spain, his second home, from gaining a reputation of being racist.

Following the international outrage caused by the incident, La Liga has apparently taken some action, firing six officials including referee Iglesias Villanueva, who was responsible for VAR during the match in question.

Marca shared excerpts from the decision wherein La Liga stated that "they cannot find the reason why the sequence sent only referred to the Brazilian's blow to Hugo Duro's face and not to the rest of the play." It is unclear if on-field referee De Burgos Bengoechea will also be sacked. He made the decision to hand out the red card, but it was based on limited images sent to him by the VAR team.

Real Madrid threaten legal action against 'hate crime'

In a statement released following Sunday's events Los Blancos made it clear that they will not stop at simply condemning the racism shown against Vinicius Junior. "These events represent a direct attack on the social and democratic model of coexistence of our State based on the rule of law.

"Real Madrid believes that such attacks also constitute a hate crime, and has therefore filed the corresponding report with the Attorney General's Office, specifically with the Prosecutor's Office against crimes of hatred and discrimination, in order for the facts to be investigated and for those responsible to be held accountable."

It is unclear if Valencia CF will face any sanctions or penalties following the behaviour of their home fans.