FC Barcelona is not resigned to losing Robert Lewandowski for three games once the national competition resumes. Yesterday, the Appeals Committee rejected the appeal presented by the Catalan club before the three games of sanction with which the Polish striker was sanctioned. It happened on the last day of the League at El Sadar when Gil Manzano showed the new blaugrana two yellow cards that entailed a one-match sanction to which two others were added due to the “inconsideration” that the referee noted in the record of the culé player.
Appeal rejected Barcelona’s appeal, but the Blaugrana club immediately reacted by announcing that it was going to file an appeal before the Administrative Court of Sport (TAD) and that at the same time a precautionary suspension of the sanction will be requested so that the Polish striker can dispute Barcelona’s first match after the World Cup break, which is neither more nor less than the derby against Espanyol.
Barcelona tried to invalidate the first yellow card that the Pole saw in the match, due to a grab, claiming that “neither the footballer stops his opponent recklessly, nor is a promising attack by the local team being frustrated.” Appeal considers that it is not its function to “assess the application and interpretation of the rules of the gamesince this is ‘sole, exclusive and definitive competence of the arbitrators, without the federative disciplinary bodies being able to know about them’”.
Barcelona, in its appeal, argued that with respect to Lewandowski’s gesture that was recorded in the area once expelled, it does not imply contempt or inconsideration towards the referee and that the gesture was “misinterpreted” and affirms that “the footballer simply expressed his dissatisfaction with the ways in which the referee had treated him, but in no case with a derogatory, offensive or pejorative sense.”
