The Spanish refereeing committee has drawn a hard line over the Marc Pubill handball in the Barsa-Atlético first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals, saying a similar action is “no es interpretable” and “debe sancionarse” if it happens in a match handled by Spanish referees.
The example came up in one of the CTA’s regular sessions with referees, where officials use judged incidents to make the rules more concrete. The play in question came in the 54th minute with the score at 0-1, when Pubill, after receiving the ball from goalkeeper Musso, stopped it with his hand to place it and then took the goal kick again. István Kovacs did not signal any infringement.
The incident had already drawn a formal challenge from Barsa, which went to UEFA after the match and argued that the refereeing was “contraria a la normativa actual, con incidencia en el desarrollo del encuentro y en su resultado.” The club also asked for an investigation, access to referee communications and, in its words, “el reconocimiento oficial de los errores y la adopción de las medidas pertinentes.”
UEFA’s Committee for Control, Ethics and Discipline later dismissed that complaint, declaring it “inadmisible” after reviewing the report submitted by the club. That leaves the same action judged in opposite ways by the two bodies that shape elite refereeing: UEFA closed the door on Barça’s protest, while the CTA used the play to tell Spanish officials that a similar incident must be punished.
The contrast matters because the CTA does not just review rules in theory. It uses real match incidents to guide referees, and this one has now become a public reference point for how the handball should be treated in Spain. For Barsa, the UEFA ruling means its challenge to Kovacs’s decision not to intervene with VAR has already hit its limit inside the game’s disciplinary machinery.
What remains is the practical one. If a similar action happens again in a domestic match, the CTA has already said what should follow: a sanction.
