The controversy over Pau Cubarsí’s ruled‑out goal in Barcelona’s clash with Atlético Madrid has been addressed by the Technical Committee of Referees (CTR). The committee published an official statement explaining the lengthy VAR review that left players, staff and supporters baffled.
CTR acknowledged that the SAOT semi‑automatic offside technology failed at a crucial moment. During the analysis of the penalty‑area action the system produced an error in the player‑modelling stage: the software mis‑generated the skeleton models and could not correctly process the image when there was a high concentration of players inside the box.
VAR operators attempted to recalibrate the modelling tools in real time, but their efforts were unsuccessful and the SAOT could not be restored for that incident. As a result, the technology was taken out of use for the review.
Following protocol, the officiating team reverted to a manual procedure: VAR officials drew offside lines by hand to reach a final and correct decision. That emergency switch is what caused the unusually long delay in announcing the outcome.
The committee also explained why the usual virtual offside replay did not appear on the TV broadcast. Because SAOT could not operate, it was impossible to generate and launch the virtual replay for the television production.
In closing, CTR admitted the episode highlighted limitations in the technology and offered this technical failure as the reason for the disallowed goal and the protracted review process.
