That Barcelona has been heavily favoured by refereeing decisions in the past weeks against their illustrious rivals Real Madrid is saying the obvious.

For each of the four times both teams have met this season Real Madrid have ended up playing with 10 men against Barcelona. One may not grudge the fact that some of the sending-offs were merited but a situation were fouls by the Barcelona players were largely overlooked Real Madrid players were heavily sanctioned by the referees for fouls committed.

As video replays show the challenge by Pepe a few nights ago was never such to warrant a straight red card. he went for the ball with one leg just the same as Dani Alves and I was shocked to see the referee mess up was what promising to be a cracking match.

Given Real Madrid's status in Spanish football it baffles many football followers that Barcelona seem to be doing the politicking better and as a result are getting majority of the crucial decisions in their favour.

Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho perhaps gave an indication to what is behind the heavy influence Barcelona is currently exerting on refereeing decisions.

Jose said,'With our strategy we were not going to lose. So why did we? Maybe it’s because advertising Unicef gets you sympathy, maybe having [Spanish Football Federation chief] Villar on Uefa gets you sympathy, or some form of congratulations for being a great football team?"

"I don't know why. All I can do is leave this question and wait to see if there'll be any response'

So we ask,'Is it the UNICEF connection or the Villar connection that has seen Barcelona getting undue cover and protection by referees.'

Who saw the foul by Messi which deserved a yellow card but none was given as the attacking midfielder signalled to the referee with his thumb and the referee overlooked the matter.

The truth remains that though Barcelona play something close awe-inspiring football they have shown that they can be very aggressive and unsportsmanlike when their game plan is being shut down by the opposition. ,

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