The refereeing staff will suffer two casualties this weekend due to COVID. In the First Division, Pizarro Gómez, who was going to whistle Athletic-Levante, has tested positive and will no longer be able to do so. His replacement will be Alberola Rojas, who had been left without a designation for this weekend. His absence was notorious after his last and controversial arbitration in Cádiz-Granada where he did not indicate a clear maximum penalty for Foulquier.
Madrid's Pizarro Gómez is asymptomatic and in good health. It should be remembered that all First and Second referees undergo a PCR test 48 hours before having to referee their match and without a negative they cannot move. VAR referees, for their part, must pass a serological test and a temperature test to enter the VOR.
Every day, the CTA appoints two arbitrators as substitutes for cases like this. They have them in reserve to correct any contingency derived from the coronavirus. Further, If it were necessary and the number of positives increased drastically among the referees of the category, it could exceptionally be that Second Division braids whistled in First despite not having achieved the category. A situation that is very remote and that Velasco Carballo already expressed in his day that it is a way that was opened to guarantee the dispute of the competition, but that he hopes not to have to resort to it.
For his part, the referee Francisco José Hernández Maeso, with severe gastroenteritis, will not be able to lead the Logroñés-Leganés match and his replacement will be Javier Iglesias Villanueva.