Athletic Club’s Yuri Berchiche ban upheld despite official VAR error admission

Athletic Club have lost their appeal against Yuri Berchiche’s one-match suspension, despite an official refereeing review acknowledging that the defender’s red card was an error and that VAR should have intervened.

The decision was issued only hours before Athletic Club’s meeting with Barcelona and is likely to intensify the legal and refereeing debate surrounding the case. The club’s appeal was rejected by the Appeals Committee, which upheld the Disciplinary Committee’s ruling of 25 August 2026, including Berchiche’s suspension and the associated fines.

Berchiche was sent off by referee Soto Grado last Saturday. The decision prompted anger from both the player and Athletic Club, particularly after the referees’ official “It’s time for a review” video, released on Tuesday, concluded that the dismissal had resulted from a clear refereeing error.

The video also stated that VAR, operated by referee Valentin Pizarro, should have become involved in the incident.

Athletic Club submitted its appeal within the required timeframe and in the correct form. Its case relied heavily on the refereeing committee’s own assessment and requested the cancellation of Berchiche’s card.

The club specifically asked for “the annulment of the decision of the Disciplinary Committee dated 25 August 2026 in case 2627_O_0004 and a declaration that there was a clear and material error in Yuri Berchiche’s dismissal”. It also sought the removal of all the disciplinary consequences, including the one-match suspension.

Athletic Club argued that the technical committee had effectively accepted the referee’s mistake in its review programme. For disciplinary purposes, the video stated that “the action did not deny a clear goal-scoring opportunity, and the official technical opinion considers a direct free-kick without a card to be the appropriate action”.

However, the Appeals Committee rejected that argument. It accepted that the “It’s time for a review” video could be considered new evidence, but said that this did not establish its significance or make its conclusions binding on the appeals body.

The committee referred to an earlier ruling by the Administrative Sports Court, which described the programme as having “an exclusively informative, educational and instructional purpose, aimed at explaining refereeing decisions and improving understanding of the laws of the game”.

It added that “there is no legal provision establishing a relationship of dependency between subsequent assessments by the technical committee of referees and the referees’ reports, nor does it oblige disciplinary bodies to follow the opinions expressed in the programme”.

The ruling also said the programme had “a purely educational purpose and, therefore, does not analyse every controversial incident, but examines some of them selectively”.

The Appeals Committee drew a distinction between the technical and legal meanings of the language used. It said the “clear and obvious error” mentioned in the referees’ video related to the technical assessment of the referee’s performance and the threshold for VAR intervention.

By contrast, the “clear material error” referred to in Articles 27.3 and 137.2 of the Disciplinary Code is an exceptional legal basis for overturning a refereeing decision.

“Using similar wording in the technical sphere does not automatically establish the legal basis required,” the committee said. “Accepting the opposite would give binding force to a subsequent decision by the technical committee of referees, something that the federation’s regulations do not recognise and which the Court of Arbitration for Sport has expressly rejected.”

The committee concluded that the evidence demonstrated “a technical difference of opinion regarding the referee’s decision, not an obvious objective contradiction”. It added that “the existence of another possible interpretation, even if it comes from the technical committee of referees, is not enough to overturn the presumption of accuracy protecting the referee’s decision”.

Athletic Club’s argument that Berchiche had suffered “double sporting damage” was also rejected. The committee said the team’s numerical disadvantage during the match resulted directly from the referee’s decision, while the later suspension came from the disciplinary system.

“These are not two disciplinary punishments for the same act, but consequences of a different nature,” it said.

The appeal has therefore been dismissed in full. Athletic Club were not able to seek a precautionary suspension of the ban before the Administrative Sports Court.