Real Sociedad slam referees in official statement

Real Sociedad does not accept the technical explanation offered by the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA). Following the controversial Basque derby against Athletic Club, the San Sebastián club issued a strongly worded official statement flatly rejecting the suggestion that the penalty awarded against Jon Mikel Aramburu was merely an “IT incident.” For the ‘txuri-urdin’ club, what happened at San Mamés was a structural breakdown in officiating caused by three consecutive acts of negligence that decisively altered the result.

Real Sociedad slam referees in official

In its statement, the club sets out the sequence of errors in detail. The first failure, Real Sociedad alleges, occurred on the pitch: a clear error of judgment by the referee, who awarded the penalty without noticing that Aramburu had touched the ball before making any contact with his opponent. The second failing concerns the video operation room (VOR). The club maintains that there was a blatant failure to follow the review protocol: the video officials failed to identify that earlier touch despite having television footage that clearly showed it.

The third failure involved Connected Ball technology. Real Sociedad cites the CTA’s own acknowledgment of a delay of between one and two frames (20 to 40 milliseconds) in the smart ball’s signal, but stresses that this technical anomaly threw the system out of calibration and misled the video officials.

Rather than limiting its complaint to dissatisfaction with the match’s outcome, the club has directly challenged the refereeing authorities with three key questions about the procedure:

• What verification protocol was followed in the VOR before confirming the foul?
• Who bears technical responsibility for calibrating the ball’s sensor and ensuring it is synchronized?
• What oversight checks are in place to detect millisecond discrepancies before making a match-deciding decision?

Real Sociedad concludes its statement with a stark warning: formal apologies do not undo the sporting damage. The club is demanding an urgent, comprehensive review of technological protocols to restore credibility to a system that, after the events in Bilbao, has been called into serious question.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.