Cadiz have taken La Liga to the Court of Arbitration for Sport over a refereeing decision in January, and it could lead to La Liga being suspended. A clear offside decision was not given against Elche during their equaliser against the Yellow Submarine in January, which Cadiz allege was negligence.
President Manuel Vizcaino has claimed he will take the case as far as he can, although it is unlikely the league will be suspended. The incident occurred during a 1-1 draw on the 16th of January, where there was a clear offside not given in the build-up to Ezequiel Ponce’s equaliser. Vizcaino explained why their case was not just further complaints about a refereeing decision.
“Trying to be as didactic as possible: this is not an error of interpretation. It is not a kick to the head from a defender to a striker, in which it could even be interpreted that one has headbutted the other’s boot. It would be a bizarre interpretation, but hey. This is not interpretable: it is not an error, it is negligence. It has never happened. It is not that it is a manifest error by the referee, it is negligence,” Vizcaino told Relevo.
“And also there are two very clear factors: the play was not reviewed as the rule says, from the beginning of the play, and beyond all this is that both the Technical Committee of Referees, as well as the RFEF, have recognised that they were wrong. They had never recognized it like this before, of a specific play. And they have taken disciplinary measures based on this, which is one more sign that negligence has been committed. This is not a tantrum from Cadiz “,
He went on to argue that the competition was not just if the decision remained the same, thus it their court case has gone nuclear with the measures they are willing to take.
🚨¡¡El Cádiz pide que se pare LaLiga!!
➡️Lleva al TAD el partido ante el Elche del pasado mes de enero en el que el Elche empató con un tanto en fuera de juego
➡️Como medida cautelar pide que se pare temporalmente LaLiga hasta que haya una resolución pic.twitter.com/rnuCYRDOSw
— Radioestadio Noche (@RadioestadioN) March 1, 2023
“It’s a mess, it’s true.”
“If we are the best League in the world, then we have to be able to defend our rights in the best possible way. We have given a consistent technical argument, so our argument is not crazy. We ask for those minutes to be repeated. It can happen that Cadiz win, lose or draw. If we have two more points, I go to Real [Sociedad] in a different way. If Elche have one less point, then they face the games in other ways. If this is not resolved in due time and form, the competition is adulterated. You are not going to risk a possible relegation in the same way with two points more or two points less. It is not the same, neither mentally, nor psychologically, nor sportingly.”
In his view, it was a matter of ensuring it was resolved sooner rather than later.
“The thing is that it does not reach the point where irreparable damage is caused by negligence. And, right now, the damage can be repaired. There is still time. If the damage were irreparable, in the face of possible economic damage, for a decrease or something like that, the subsidiary responsible would be the State. But we don’t want to have to ask for anything tomorrow. It’s just that, right now, the damage is reparable.”
As has been pointed out by many, the risk is the pandora’s box that this matter could open. A number of refereeing decisions are called incorrectly every season, and if clubs are able to circumvent the league bodies to get the decisions they want, it could lead to a messy and situation where football matches are played in court as well as on the pitch.
