FC Barcelona’s Support For The Super League Is Harming Them In The Champions League

FC Barcelona’s support for the failed Super League is harming them in this year’s edition of the Champions League, it has been claimed.

For the second year running, the Catalans now have a mountain to climb following just one win and two defeats to Inter Milan and Bayern Munich that has left them third in Group C.

They must beat those two continental giants at home in that order in their next two matches in the competition to have their fate in their own hands when they travel to Viktoria Plzen for their final game before the knockouts.

But even though they were poor at the San Siro on Tuesday night, with many players such as Raphinha, Robert Lewandowski and Gavi putting in their worst performances in a Barca shirt to date, the Blaugrana have every right to feel that they were hard done to in a 1-0 defeat to Milan decided by Hakan Calhanoglu’s strike from outside the box on the stroke of half time.

Barca had a Pedri equalizer denied by VAR due to a harsh decision ruling that Ansu Fati had handled the ball on the way down to the ground as Ousmane Dembele’s cross swung in.

There was also a penalty shout after Robert Lewandowski was pushed which was overlooked, but worse of all was another handball similar to Fati’s by Denzel Dumfries in the dying moments which was not deemed enough to give Barca a chance to score from 12 yards out.

“I’m p*ssed off about it. We don’t understand anything,” raged first team coach Xavi Hernandez post-match.

“If there’s a hand from Ansu and another scores it’s a goal, and they disallow it. And the other can’t be understood. It’s an injustice, the referees should explain because we don’t understand.”

The feeling from many in Catalonia is that Barca are being punished by UEFAEFA
for still supporting the failed breakaway Super League.

“Either [Paris Saint Germain president Nasser] Al-Khelaifi and [UEFA president Aleksander] Ceferin were the ones reviewing the footage at the VAR room or nobody can understand how they don’t send the referee to the monitor,” suggested Mundo Deportivo journalist Fernando Polo.

The same newspaper has reported that Barca’s board, players and coaching staff are in agreement that something “must be done” about what unfolded in the Italian fashion capital, with changes to FIFA rules showing that Pedri’s goal should have stood.

Though the club themselves have made no accusations of a conspiracy between PSG and UEFA to halt their progress in the Champions League, they are serious claims to make by anyone and can be found all over social media.

They also don’t quite stack up given that the main driving force behind the Super League, Real Madrid, joined only by Juventus and Barca, are the current holders of the UCL and benefited from a number of controversial calls on their way to a 14th title last season.

One thing is for sure, people feel a sense of injustice. Yet Barca must win convincingly for the rest of this edition of the tournament in order not to leave their destiny in the hands of others which at this moment in time seems to be a second consecutive apperance in the inferior Europa League.