Real Madrid-Valencia referee ‘put in the fridge’ as punishment for added time error

Gil Manzano has been left off the referee appointments ahead of match day 29 in LaLiga.

The Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) in Spain have punished Gil Manzano and he will not participate in LaLiga’s match day 29 fixtures. The referee from Extremadura has been, as they say in Spanish, ‘put in the fridge’ after the mistake he made at the end of the Valencia-Real Madrid game two weeks ago.

Although, from the Committee’s point of view, Gil Manzano had performed well in a tense game, he did make a mistake in the last action of the game by blowing for full-time at the wrong moment. The 40-year-old whistled just as Los Blancos were finishing their attacking phase and Bellingham scored a goal at the end of the move - a split-second after the final whistle had controversially already been blown.

It was to be expected that Gil Manzano would end up ‘in the fridge’ as last season, Ortiz Arias made the same mistake, blowing the whistle at the end of the first half in the Valladolid-Sevilla game when Sergio Escudero had shot from the edge of the area: the ball ended up going into the net but the goal did not stand.

On that occasion, the goal was not given as the whistle went before the ball crossed the goal line. The official from Madrid did not referee for three match days because of this mistake. Now it remains to be seen how long Gil Manzano will be away from the field of play, as his error was very similar.

The referee allowed Real Madrid to take a corner, warning the players that it would be the last action of the game for both teams. Modric put it in before was cleared to the edge of the area where Brahim took possession and Diego López tried to tackle him. Gil Manzano should have made the decision to either whistle for the