The Spanish Rugby Federation (FER) will make an official complaint to World Rugby over the performance of Romanian referee Vlad Iordachescu after Sunday’s Rugby Europe Championship match against Belgium ended in "disgraceful scenes as a number of Spain players chased him off the pitch at full-time," according to Jack de Menezes of the London INDEPENDENT. Spain was "on the verge of qualifying for the 2019 Rugby World Cup," having not qualified for the tournament since '99. The side only needed to beat Belgium -- ranked 25th in the world -- "to join Georgia as qualifiers from the second tier of European rugby." However, Spain "suffered a controversial 18-10 defeat" in Brussels that saw Iordachescu penalize the team 28 times to Belgium’s eight. The matter "was not helped" given that the beneficiary of Spain’s defeat was Romania, which has now qualified for Japan 2019. The FER made an official request to Rugby Europe to "change the all-Romanian officials" on Feb. 19 once it "became clear that it would be a straight shootout between the two countries," but it was rejected and Rugby Europe confirmed it will not comment on the matter "until a full review into Iordachescu’s performance has been completed." An FER statement said, "Romania needed Spain to lose in order to go to the World Cup, evidently, a Romanian referee was not ideal for this game" (INDEPENDENT, 3/19). The BBC reported World Rugby said that it will look at the "context of events" around the result. Spain will "now face Portugal in a bid to reach" the 2019 RWC, with the winner of that match then facing Samoa in a two-legged tie (BBC, 3/19). REUTERS' Martyn Herman reported Spain coach Santiago Santos criticized Iordachescu in his post-match news conference, "accusing him of not allowing his team to play." Santos: "The difference between penalties against us and for us was huge. When we were trying to come back in the game, the play kept on being interrupted. I said to one of the players that Spain didn't lose today, rugby lost" (REUTERS, 3/19).
