The events took place on Wednesday, at the Stadium Gal, in Irun. In the 72nd minute, the home team, Real Unión, served a short corner. From an adjacent field they kicked a ball that some spectators asked for from the stands. The ball went over the stadium cover and into the field of play.
Several Terrassa players warned of this fact by raising their arms and even standing still so that the referee would stop the game. Despite the distraction of this second ball, which crossed the entire area until it reached the feet of the referee, the home team continued to play and managed to score in a convoluted move where it is not even clear if the ball ended up going in or not. Outraged, the Terrassa players hurried to protest an action that ended up deciding the match and costing the Valaisans elimination from the RFEF Cup.
“It’s regrettable, we’re very outraged”, protests Terrassa’s president, Jordi Cuesta, to ARA, who shows his displeasure at the outrageous move. “Many players stand still, there could be a foul in the area and, moreover, you can’t even see if the ball ends up going in, it’s very strong”, says the president, who defends that the referee should ‘stopped the game and declared a neutral bot. Through a statement, the club describes “completely unfair the referee’s decision to continue playing with two balls in the field that interfered directly with the play”. In the letter, in addition, Terrassa also shows its surprise at the fact that, in the 85th minute, the referee did decide to stop the game – and so it was recorded in the minutes – due to the entry of nine off a second ball on the pitch. “It’s a shame, because we were playing a very serious game,” adds Cuesta.
The protests of the players on the pitch were joined by that of the sporting director of the Valais club, Miquel Ezequiel, who, according to the referee’s report, “addressed the assistant, in an aggressive manner, hitting him with the palm of the hand on the back”. According to the report, Ezequiel “had to be held down by several people”. The Egaren club condemns the conduct of its sporting director, which has also caused great discomfort in the Catalan Football Federation. “We have called them to ask for help and they tell us that they are angry about this fact, that it is something different from what happened during the game”, regrets Cuesta. Ezequiel, for his part, assures that the referee “falsified the minutes” by stating that the manager was waiting for him outside the field after the match ended. The Egaren club, which has publicly apologized for Ezequiel’s behavior, will present allegations in the arbitration report.
The incident in question is not only a simple arbitration controversy, but has very damaging effects for the economy of Terrassa. If they made it through the play-offs and therefore reached the semi-finals of the RFEF Cup, they automatically qualified for the Copa del Rey, where they would have faced a First Division opponent. “We gamble a lot of money. A Primera would have allowed us to fill the stadium, which will have been renovated in December. In 2020, due to covid, we already had to play behind closed doors against Valencia, so we couldn’t take the opportunity to cash in and now we had a lot of excitement”, says the president of the Egaren club regretfully.
