Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone storms out of meeting with UEFA referees | OneFootball

Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone reportedly stormed out of a meeting with a UEFA delegation last week ahead of their clash with Alaves. The Atletico chief remains frustrated with what is seen as an injustice at Atletico that Julian Alvarez’s double-touch penalty was ruled a miss in their Champions League elimination at the hands of Real Madrid last season.

On Friday last week, as Los Colchoneros prepared for their trip to Vitoria-Gasteiz, they were visited by a UEFA delegation to discuss rule changes, with former referee Carlos Velasco Carballo. One of the alterations was to the ‘double-touch rule’, where IFAB have now advised that unintentional double-touches should be ruled as retakes, rather than misses.

Simeone infuriated by UEFA officials

The sequence of events was first described by Ruben Uria in ‘The Club de Uria’,  before later being published by Diario AS. The UEFA team began to discuss the double-touch rule, and Simeone asked why they weren’t using the Alvarez incident. Velasco insisted that they had another incident selected to analyse the rule. El Cholo pointed out that it was the Alvarez incident that provoked the ‘clarification’, and demanded that Velasco explain the events at the Metropolitano, but Velasco had no intention of doing so. The stance, amid general scepticism surrounding the call at Atletico, perplexed the players and Simeone.

Image via Sport / Champions League

Simeone storms out of meeting

Velasco continued his line of argument, saying that Alvarez touched the ball twice, and the incident needed no further explanation. At this point, Simeone stood up, loudly declared ‘I feel shame. Shame’, before collecting his things, and then leaving the room.

Atletico remain confused at the behaviour of UEFA, while Simeone then proceeded to carry out the subsequent training session and press conference without commenting further on it. The matter is understandably highly sensitive for Atleti, with IFAB’s adjustment seemingly a tacit admission of the injustice of the prior rule.