Pedro Martín criticizes VAR rule after Betis goal disallowed

Real Betis was denied a first-half equalizer against Barcelona at the Benito Villamarín when referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea disallowed Giovani Lo Celso’s strike following a video assistant referee review for a prior handball by Cucho Hernández some 15 seconds before the shot.

Frustration Over the Timing of the Call

The decision drew sharp condemnation from refereeing analyst Pedro Martín on the Cope radio program “Tiempo de Juego.” Martín argued that treating a handball occurring 15 seconds prior to a goal as part of the same attacking phase exposes fundamental flaws in modern officiating interpretations. Cucho Hernández had the ball under control during the initial sequence, but Martín maintained that penalizing a separate movement well before the shot ruins the game.

The problem is that the referee considers the handball to be deliberate, and that it happened within the same movement that ended with the goal. What is happening in handball cases has become a joke, and the other day it was Betis’ turn.

Martín warned that inconsistent applications of the rule continue to plague competitions without adequate oversight. He pointed to recent matches, including a separate incident involving Porto, to illustrate widespread confusion surrounding how referees judge accidental versus deliberate handballs in the build-up to scoring plays.

The problem in all of this is that the regulations should be abandoned, and that’s it. The other day, people did not protest about the handball that was given against Porto. We cannot accept these handballs being given in this way, whether the decision is in our favour or against us, because this is not football.

Disputed Regulations and Consistency

The controversy centers on the temporal distance between an infraction and a goal.

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