Spanish press reports revealed an official move by Juan Laporta, president of FC Barcelona, protesting the refereeing decisions witnessed in his team's confrontations against Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Champions League.

According to the Spanish newspaper 'Mundo Deportivo', Laporta expressed intense anger towards the performance of the refereeing team and the video assistant referee (VAR) during the second leg match at the Metropolitano Stadium, which was also evident in his statements to the media, before taking direct steps to express his dissatisfaction to the officials of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).

The report explained that Laporta directly contacted Aleksander Ceferin, president of UEFA, leveraging the good relationship between the two parties, especially after Barcelona resumed its relations with UEFA and its moves to withdraw from the Super League project and return to the European Club Association.

Laporta's move was not limited to a phone call, as the report indicated that during his presence at the Metropolitano Stadium, he approached both Theodoros Theodoridis, UEFA's general secretary, and Giorgio Marchetti, his deputy, and lodged a direct complaint regarding the refereeing decisions.

In his conversation, Laporta criticized referee Clément Turpin's decisions in the second leg match, pointing to the non-awarding of a penalty for Dani Olmo, in addition to the strong intervention by goalkeeper Musso on Fermín, and also addressed the performance of referee Stefan Kovacs in the first leg at the Spotify Camp Nou.

The newspaper added that Laporta expressed his dissatisfaction with several decisions, most notably the non-awarding of a penalty due to a handball on Bobel, the expulsion of Pau Cubarsi, as well as the non-awarding of fouls on Koke. He also criticized the description of Barcelona's official protest regarding the handball incident as unacceptable, despite a similar case in the Champions League that ended with a penalty being awarded, specifically in the match between Club Brugge and Aston Villa.

The report indicated that UEFA officials tried to calm Laporta, asking him to wait until the end of the match to fully assess the refereeing performance, but the decision to expel Eric Garcia after the intervention of VAR, despite initially only warning him, increased his anger.

The report confirmed that Laporta continued to express his intense dissatisfaction the following day, during his presence in the Godo Tournament village, amid the anger that dominated him due to what happened in the two confrontations.