A La Liga match between Atletico Madrid and Getafe at the Estadio Metropolitano on Saturday descended into controversy when Getafe defender Abdel Abqar was dismissed after Video Assistant Referee (VAR) footage showed him reaching for the groin of Atletico striker Alexander Sorloth in an off-the-ball incident.
Abqar received a direct red card in the 55th minute after referee Miguel Ortiz reviewed footage showing his hand moving toward Sorloth’s groin area. Sorloth responded by grabbing the Moroccan player by the arm and throwing him to the ground. Ortiz formally recorded in his match report that Abqar was dismissed for having “pinched the genital area of an adversary.” Sorloth received a yellow card for his retaliation.
The match had already been settled by that point, with Atletico leading through a superb long-range strike from wing-back Nahuel Molina in the eighth minute. The dismissal left Getafe to play out the remainder of the game with ten men, though they created several chances to level before Atletico goalkeeper Juan Musso made a fine late save to preserve the result.
Speaking to Movistar after the game, Abqar insisted the contact was unintentional. “It was not my intention to touch the player in that area,” he said. “In the video you can see I wasn’t looking at him. I wanted to touch his stomach, as I sometimes do to feel where an opponent is. I swear on my family that I did not mean to touch him there.”
Atletico manager Diego Simeone said he had not yet seen the footage at the time of his post-match comments, revealing that the fourth official had initially suggested the foul might have gone the other way. He deferred to VAR, saying he had no comment on a decision the technology was specifically designed to make.
Atletico goalkeeper Juan Musso was less restrained, saying: “These are things that happened 30 years ago. Before, you could do this in football. Now there is no place for these things.”
The victory moved Atletico to third place in La Liga, two points ahead of Villarreal after 28 matchdays, with the club also preparing for a Champions League last-16 second leg against Tottenham Hotspur later in the week.
