Muniain erupts at referees: “Not a red card here or in Beijing”

Iker Muniain left the Conquense match furious after Murua was shown a red card. The Salamanca UDS coach insisted the incident could not possibly warrant a dismissal and summed up his view with a blunt line: “Not a red card here or in Beijing.” As Mundo Deportivo reports, he felt the call was absolutely disproportionate, with the sending off leaving his team to play with ten men in a game that was still far from decided.

Anger over the referee call

Muniain repeatedly argued that the play didn’t merit a red card. “If it’s 40 meters away, with three players covering, where is the red card?”, he asked, visibly upset. Then he went further, demanding explanations from the officiating team. “I want them to tell me how you can leave a team with ten players for this action,” he said, according to Mundo Deportivo.

He also pushed for referees to take responsibility when they make mistakes. “If you’ve made a mistake, it’s fine,” he said, arguing that if coaches and players are constantly under scrutiny, officials should also explain decisions that heavily affect a match.

“That’s how you condition a game”

Finally, Muniain stressed that the dismissal completely altered a match he believed was still very much alive. “For them to condition a game like that, when it was really alive and there were forty minutes left, is terrible,” he concluded, as Mundo Deportivo notes, with the red card becoming the main talking point after the match.