La Liga branded ‘embarrassing’ by Barcelona for lack of goal-line technology in Real Madrid’s controversial El Clásico win

The coach of Barcelona, Xavi, and their goalkeeper, Marc-André ter Stegen, criticized La Liga for not having goal-line technology. They felt embarrassed after the team was not given a point that they believed was fair during their recent match against Real Madrid. The final score resulted in a 3-2 defeat.

The event happened in the 28th minute when Vinícius Jr., a forward for Real Madrid, scored a goal to tie the game after Andreas Christensen's early goal at the Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, Spain.

A young individual named Lamine Yamal was responsible for performing a flick on Raphinha's corner at the close post. As a result, Real Madrid's goalkeeper Andriy Lunin seemed surprised and hastily pushed away the ball from the goal, leading to the Barcelona players arguing that it had actually crossed the line.

Even though Barca strongly disagreed, the referee César Soto ruled that the ball didn't go past the line during the game. Afterwards, the VAR was used to review the situation.

The angles captured by VAR did not provide a clear outcome, even though one of the angles captured the goal line from above but was obstructed by Lunin's body. This resulted in Soto's initial verdict being upheld.

According to Cadena Ser, La Liga is currently the only top five European league that does not use goal-line technology. The outlet reported that the league's president, Javier Tebas, declined to pay the €3 million ($3.2M) needed to implement the system at the start of the current season.

As per FIFA, the technology used to determine whether a goal has occurred can quickly inform the referee if the entire ball has crossed the line within just one second.

According to FIFA, their technology involves the utilization of 14 high-speed cameras that are stationed either on the catwalk of the stadium or underneath the roof. The information captured by these cameras is then employed to generate a 3D animation intended for exhibiting the verdict to the spectators who are watching on their televisions as well as on the giant screen within the stadium.

CNN asked La Liga for a comment, but they haven't responded yet. Tebas, on the other hand, shared some old articles on X (known as Twitter formerly) which showed some mistakes made by goal-line technology in different European leagues. The articles were quite old though, the most recent one was over two years ago. Tebas captioned it with "No comment."

Many people have strongly criticized Tebas for his post. In an article for a Spanish news source called Diario AS, Lucía Taboada humorously compared La Liga's decision to not use goal-line technology to someone who purposely ignores all the advancements in technology that exist today.

She stated that it's like wishing to live with torches and oil lamps in a building with electricity or preferring to bear an infection even though antibiotics are available. This analogy can be applied to the use of goal line technology in La Liga.

Real Madrid emerged victorious in El Clásico after Jude Bellingham scored a goal in the final moments, widening the gap to 11 points over Barcelona and getting one step closer to securing the La Liga trophy.

Ter Stegen expressed his difficulty in describing what occurred at the goal line to the press, as stated in ESPN. He deemed the situation as disgraceful for football. Despite the large sums of money involved in this field, Ter Stegen believes that it is not allocated towards what truly matters.

I'm confused as to why there isn't enough funds to introduce the same technology that other sports organizations have.

Xavi stated that he was in complete agreement with his goalkeeper.

It's quite shameful that there's a lack of technology to determine if a ball has crossed the goal line. If we want to claim that our league is one of the finest in the planet, it is imperative that we have this technology in place. These were his words.

We all witnessed it. I have no other words to describe it. The league may reprimand me, but the evidence is clear for all to see. The vibes I'm experiencing right now are of utter unfairness.

Before the game, I expressed my desire for the referee to make correct decisions without drawing attention to themselves. Unfortunately, the opposite occurred and the referee made mistakes that were impossible to ignore.

Carlo Ancelotti, the manager of Real Madrid, had a different opinion than Xavi and Ter Stegen. This was not surprising.

He stated to Forbes that he preferred not to provide any opinion regarding Xavi's thoughts, as everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. The match was challenging and skillful, with a high level of play demonstrated. In his view, the goal was not a legitimate one, as there was a lack of clear visual evidence to support it.