The Royal Spanish Football Federation has officially suspended Real Madrid star Vinícius Junior for four matches in La Liga following his red card during a 1-0 victory over Villarreal, confirming his absence from the upcoming El Clásico against Barcelona.
The crisis began in the 72nd minute of the match when VAR summoned referee Isidro Díaz de Mera to review Vinícius pulling Nathan Saliba’s hair at the start of an attacking move that ended with the Brazilian scoring a goal, which was subsequently disallowed before a straight red card was brandished.
The Disciplinary Committee decided to suspend Vinícius for two matches based on Article 130.2 of the Disciplinary Code, ruling that he acted in a violent manner away from the challenge for the ball—since the ball was not within reach of the players at the moment of the hair-pulling, a detail that raised the minimum punishment from one match to two.
The remaining two matches were added due to the player’s reaction after the red card, applying Article 127 regarding protesting against referees. The match report stated that Vinícius continued to protest loudly and approached the referee with “aggressive behavior,” forcing his teammates to grab and hold him back, though the referee was unable to make out specific words uttered by him.
Real Madrid’s defenses failed to reduce Vinícius’s sentence, but the club secured another legal victory when the committee agreed to rescind the yellow card shown to Ibrahima Konaté against Villarreal. Replays showed that the French defender did not touch Gerard Moreno in the challenge whistled by the referee, proving a clear and obvious material error.
That card would have taken Konaté’s tally to four yellow cards, leaving him at risk of missing El Clásico if he were booked against Sevilla; however, its cancellation brought his count back down to three, removing the immediate threat of suspension ahead of the Camp Nou showdown.
Vinícius will begin serving his suspension by missing the match against Sevilla at the Santiago Bernabéu on October 18, followed by El Clásico against Barcelona at Camp Nou on October 25, then an away trip to Racing Santander on November 1, and finally the fixture against Valencia at Mestalla on November 7.
The Brazilian winger is expected to return to La Liga action against Celta Vigo on November 22 following the international break, meaning he will be sidelined from domestic competition for over a month. The suspension does not apply to the UEFA Champions League, leaving him available for the matches against RB Leipzig on October 21 and AEK Athens on November 4, while José Mourinho will have to find a replacement for him across four domestic rounds sandwiched around the biggest match of the season.
