Madrid\u2019s mayor Jos\u00e9 Luis Mart\u00ednez-Almeida has levelled sharp accusations at UEFA following Atl\u00e9tico Madrid\u2019s two-legged Champions League semifinal defeat to Arsenal. The mayor, an Atl\u00e9tico supporter, criticised match officials and VAR decisions across both fixtures and suggested institutional bias.<\/p>\n
“Well look, what I\u2019m saying is that when I saw the draw I thought we\u2019d get Arsenal and I was wrong. We got to play against UEFA. And UEFA has made it clear that they didn’t want Atl\u00e9tico Madrid in the Champions League final,” Mart\u00ednez-Almeida said during a media appearance.<\/p>\n
The mayor singled out the appointment of German referee Daniel Siebert for the Emirates return leg and questioned the broader handling of key incidents. \u201cIt\u2019s incomprehensible that they appointed a German referee when Spain and Germany are playing for the fifth Champions League spot,\u201d Mart\u00ednez-Almeida added. \u201cWho, other than UEFA, would think of appointing a German referee as both the main referee and the VAR referee?<\/p>\n
“And yesterday there were plays that weren\u2019t due to the referee being more or less bad, but in my opinion, due to a predetermined decision aimed at harming Atl\u00e9tico Madrid.”<\/p>\n
Mart\u00ednez-Almeida pointed to three specific penalty incidents at the Emirates. The first involved a push by Riccardo Calafiori on Giuliano Simeone that was initially dismissed because Simeone was judged offside; replays suggested Simeone was onside, having been in his own half when the pass was played. \u201cIt\u2019s incomprehensible that there isn\u2019t a single replay of Giuliano\u2019s offside when it was a clear penalty,\u201d said Mart\u00ednez-Almeida. \u201cWe later saw on social media that it wasn\u2019t offside and that he left his own half. In a match broadcast by so many television cameras, why didn\u2019t the production team show a replay to determine whether it was offside or not? Because it wasn\u2019t offside, and they refused to admit it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two further claims involved Simeone being impeded by Gabriel after capitalising on William Saliba\u2019s header, and a Calafiori challenge on Antoine Griezmann that followed a separate foul given for a clash between Marc Pubill and Gabriel, a decision VAR upheld. <\/p>\n
Mart\u00ednez-Almeida concluded: \u201cThere\u2019s intent in my opinion. I insist, Arsenal could have been beaten, but we couldn\u2019t beat the UEFA Cup and it was impossible to beat it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mayor did not refer to referee Danny Makkelie\u2019s performance in the first leg in Madrid, where three additional penalty incidents were under examination, including a foul on Viktor Gy\u00f6keres by D\u00e1vid Hancko and a subsequent harsh decision against Ben White that allowed Atl\u00e9ti to equalise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Madrid mayor accuses UEFA of favouring Arsenal in Champions League semi, citing three incidents plus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13671,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1035,1647],"tags":[1505,1162],"class_list":["post-13672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-atletico-madrid","category-champions-league","tag-accountability","tag-analytics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}