Real Madrid TV Critiques Referee Over Mbappé Penalty Incident
The new La Liga season has barely started and already has its first full-blown refereeing storm. At the centre of it: Kylian Mbappé, a stoppage-time penalty, and a furious Real Madrid.
Real Betis beat Madrid 1-0, but the final minutes at the Benito Villamarín have dominated the debate far more than the result. According to Spanish outlet AS, the decision not to order a retake of Mbappé’s last-gasp spot-kick has become one of the most talked-about moments of the opening rounds.
The tension had been building. Carlos Espi thought he had levelled for Madrid, only to see his goal ruled out minutes before the end. Then came the 94th minute. Mbappé stepped up from the spot, his effort saved by the Betis goalkeeper. The home crowd roared; Madrid’s players didn’t.
They immediately surrounded the referee, insisting a Betis defender had encroached into the area before Mbappé struck the ball. The appeal went nowhere. The referee waved play on, treated it as a matter of interpretation, and within moments the final whistle confirmed Betis’ 1-0 win.
That decision lit the fuse in Madrid.
The club’s official television channel launched a blistering attack on the officiating, insisting the penalty should have been retaken under the laws of the game. Their analysis focused on the positioning of the Betis defenders at the moment of the kick.
Real Madrid TV argued that one defender had his right foot on the penalty area line as Mbappé made contact with the ball, then stepped fully inside and directly influenced the outcome of the play. The channel also highlighted Héctor Bellerín, claiming he too had one foot touching the line when the shot was taken.
From there, the tone hardened. The channel branded the decision “a contradiction from the referee” when measured against the letter of the law and expressed astonishment “that a referee does not know his own regulations”, calling it “a technical error”.
The criticism went beyond the single incident. In a pointed comparison, the channel declared: “Had this happened with Barcelona, the penalty would have been retaken, and had Espi’s goal been for Barcelona, perhaps it would not have been disallowed.”
For Real Madrid’s in-house broadcasters, the explanation was damning: oversight or outright incompetence. In their breakdown of the incident, they repeated that “the foul (during the taking of the penalty) was not awarded, whether due to oversight or incompetence”.
The refereeing team, for its part, maintained that Marc Bartra did not step on the line and therefore did not infringe. Real Madrid TV pushed back again, arguing that even if Bartra never actually touched the line, he still charged forward early and intervened directly in the play.
One game into the campaign, and Madrid already feel aggrieved by the officials. If this is the tone in September, what will the conversation sound like when the title race tightens?
