There was a brief hope at Real Madrid that the sending-off could be unwound. The audio released by Spain’s refereeing body on Sunday closes most of that off. VAR did not treat the Brazilian’s pull on a Villarreal player as a careless foul in open play. It called it violent conduct, and said so twice.
In the 71st-minute exchange, VAR chief Alejandro Muñiz Ruiz is heard on the open channel to referee Isidro Díaz de Mera.
“Isidro, I advise you to review the incident to assess whether there was violent conduct.”
The assistant VAR then narrates what the pictures show.
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“Vinícius is pulling the hair of a Villarreal player. This incident falls within the same phase.”
Díaz de Mera asks for a wide angle at the pitch-side monitor, checks where the attacking phase ends, and returns a verdict in seconds.
“I’ll restart play by awarding a foul and showing the red card to player number 7.”
The VAR team’s reply, according to Goal’s English transcript, was: “Agreed.”
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The referee’s report changes the math
The exact length of Vinícius’ ban is still with La Liga’s competition committee. The automatic minimum for off-ball violent conduct is two matches, as Spanish coverage has set out. That alone would be enough to keep him out of the league fixture against Sevilla and El Clásico a week later.
Where it could get worse for Real Madrid is in what Díaz de Mera wrote afterwards. The official match report, as several outlets have described, logged that the forward “continued protesting my decision, shouting loudly” and approached him “with an aggressive attitude” before being pulled away by team-mates. That paragraph, Spanish reporting suggests, could push the suspension to three games or more.
What an appeal can and cannot do
Spanish coverage is split on whether Real Madrid will formally challenge the decision. Marca has reported the club intends to appeal; AS has written that there is little room to overturn the sending-off itself.
The leaked audio makes that distinction important. With VAR explicitly framing the incident as violent conduct in the build-up to a goal, the red card itself is almost impossible to argue down. An appeal, if filed, will be aimed at the length of the ban, not the card.
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Six points behind, and now this
Real Madrid beat Villarreal 1-0 at the Santiago Bernabéu. A Vinícius strike in the same sequence was ruled out by VAR before the red card itself.
Barcelona lead La Liga, with Real Madrid six points adrift. El Clásico is scheduled for 25 October, with Real Madrid’s next league fixture against Sevilla before then.
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