Derby remains heated: Athletic and Real Sociedad issue competing statements

Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao issued competing statements over a controversial penalty decision from their Sunday derby, citing VAR procedure errors and a Connected Ball system sync fault.

The Basque derby played Sunday at San Mamés continues to dominate headlines after Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao released duelling statements within twenty minutes of each other. Real Sociedad's statement, responding to the CTA's acknowledgment of a technical fault in the Connected Ball system, identified three separate issues: a VAR review procedure error where officials failed to spot prior contact by a Real Sociedad player with the ball before the penalty-causing contact; a one-to-two frame synchronisation delay in the Connected Ball system that distorted the temporal relationship between ball data and VAR footage; and the compounding effect of these failures on the referee's decision. The club called for a comprehensive review of VAR protocols and Connected Ball calibration procedures.

Shortly after, Athletic Bilbao issued a statement titled "Protecting referees is protecting football," emphasising that respect for match officials must be a shared principle among all football stakeholders—players, coaches, officials, media and fans—and that referees deserve protection from constant scrutiny and protest.