Spanish Referees Strike Again: How La Liga’s Opening Day Became a Masterclass in Controversial Officiating

Another season, another referee controversy. If you thought La Liga might start the 2025/26 campaign with some semblance of competent officiating, well, think again. Barcelona’s 2-1 victory over Mallorca should have been a straightforward season opener, but instead, it turned into yet another exhibit in Spain’s ongoing museum of questionable refereeing decisions.

When Referees Forget They’re Not the Main Character

José Luis Munuera Montero clearly missed the memo that fans pay to watch football, not his personal interpretation of the rulebook. The match started innocently enough, with Lamine Yamal setting up Raphinha for an early goal that had everyone checking if the ball had actually crossed the line during the build-up. Spoiler alert: it hadn’t, but that was just the warm-up act for what was coming.

The real fireworks began in the 23rd minute when Antonio Raíllo took a ball to the head that would have made a heavyweight boxer proud. The Mallorca center-back crumpled to the ground like he’d been hit by a freight train, clearly dazed and needing medical attention. Any reasonable referee would have stopped play immediately. But Munuera? He apparently thought this was the perfect time to let Barcelona continue their attack, which resulted in Ferran Torres doubling the lead while Raíllo was still seeing stars.

La Liga’s Refereeing Standards Hit Rock Bottom

What happened next was peak La Liga officiating. Instead of acknowledging his mistake, Munuera decided to double down by handing out yellow cards to anyone who dared question his judgment. Manu Morlanes and coach Jagoba Arrasate both found themselves in the referee’s notebook for having the audacity to suggest that maybe, just maybe, player safety should take precedence over maintaining the flow of the game.

Arrasate later revealed that the fourth official had actually told Munuera to stop the game, right in front of him. “I thought the whistle had gone, then I realized it hadn’t,” the coach said. So not only did Munuera ignore basic player welfare protocols, but he also ignored his own colleague’s advice. That takes a special kind of stubbornness.

The situation spiraled further when Morlanes picked up a second yellow card, because apparently, expressing concern for your teammate’s well-being is now a bookable offense in La Liga. Then Vedat Muriqi got himself sent off for what can only be described as an attempted karate kick to Joan Garcia’s face while trying to score. At least that red card made sense.

Barcelona’s Hollow Victory

Even Barcelona coach Hansi Flick couldn’t hide his disappointment with how the match unfolded. “It’s three important points, but I didn’t like the game,” he admitted. “At 2-0 up, against nine men, the team played maybe at 50%, and I didn’t like that.” When the winning coach is criticizing his team’s performance in a 2-1 victory, you know something went seriously wrong.

Flick tried to maintain diplomatic relations with the officials, saying his players were right to continue playing until the whistle. Fair enough, but it doesn’t change the fact that the entire match was tainted by Munuera’s early blunder.