Pere Romeu criticises refereeing after Barça’s win over Granada

“I will continue to be respectful, but it isn’t working,” Pere Romeu said of the refereeing. The Barça coach’s frustration was not eased by the 3-0 win over Granada at Johan Cruyff: he felt two possible penalties had not been awarded to his side and defended his players’ performance.

Romeu was particularly critical of contact involving Irene Paredes. “Could it be clearer than today’s incident involving Irene? I’ve reached the point where I’ve decided not to listen to some of their arguments, but I think they say it wasn’t enough of a pull,” he said. He said he had so far sought to remain respectful and courteous towards officials, while acknowledging doubts that this approach was working. “I know it’s very, very difficult, but is it really that difficult? I don’t know,” he added.

Beyond the disputed decisions, Romeu questioned the resources available to review incidents. He identified a lack of footage as a possible obstacle to decision-making and called for more support for referees. “I know it’s complicated; I know the Liga is missing a lot of images that would give referees more options to change their initial decision,” he said. In his view, the footage available for reviews can be difficult to use, even when teams believe their tactical cameras show an incident clearly. “We need more cameras to confirm some obvious things,” he stressed, before calling for “a step forward” on the issue.

Romeu also defended his team’s performance, saying Barça had created plenty of attacking activity: “Today we had 45 shots. […] We obviously did things very well to take 45 shots in a match.” The opposition made his side build patiently, and the win was needed to return to winning ways after the setback in Donosti.

With a week containing three matches ahead, Romeu left Serrajordi, Graham and Pina on the bench at kick-off. After the break, unhappy with the opening stages of the second half, he brought on Graham and Pina in the 54th minute, replacing Aïcha and Kerolin. The coach also spoke about the Ballon d’Or nominations, which include him, six players and Barça’s women’s team. He described the mood around the individual honours as one of collective joy.