Uefa

European football’s governing body has already rejected one appeal by Barca about their quarterfinals against Atletico.

Barcelona have lodged another complaint with UEFA, after their protest about a handball incident in the first leg of their Champions League quarterfinal defeat to Atletico Madrid was rejected this week.

The Spanish club said in a statement on Thursday that several refereeing decisions across both legs of the tie, which Atletico won 3-2 on aggregate, “did not comply with the Laws of the Game, resulting from an incorrect application of the regulations and a lack of appropriate intervention by the VAR system in incidents of clear significance”.

The Catalan club, which finished both matches with 10 men after the dismissals of Pau Cubarsi and then Eric Garcia, believe they were on the wrong end of several contentious decisions, including two potential penalty situations that did not trigger VAR intervention.

“The accumulation of these errors had a direct impact on the course of the matches and on the final outcome of the tie, causing significant sporting and financial harm to the club,” the reigning Spanish champions added.

Barcelona said the club “reiterates the requests previously made to UEFA” and offer to “collaborate with the organisation with the aim of improving the refereeing system to ensure a more rigorous, fair and transparent application” of the regulations.

On Tuesday, UEFA had rejected as “inadmissible” the five-time Champions League winners’ initial complaint regarding a handball on a goal kick by Atletico defender Marc Pubill in the first leg, which his side won 2-0.

Europe’s top leagues have been summoned to a meeting with Uefa in the summer to discuss how video assistant referee (VAR) technology is being used.

The summit of referee chiefs from the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 will discuss how to reset VAR to its intended interpretation of only intervening in the clearest of errors.

Roberto Rosetti – the head of Uefa’s referees – called the meeting after saying last month the game must not “go in this direction of microscopic VAR interventions”.

Uefa wants to discuss with leagues how they use VAR, and the thresholds applied.

“I believe that we forgot the reason why VAR was introduced,” Rosetti said.

“In objective decisions, it is fantastic. For interpretations, subjective evaluation is more difficult.

“That’s why we started to speak about clear and obvious mistakes – clear evidence.”

VAR is operated very differently across Europe.

The Premier League has the lowest VAR intervention rate this season – 0.275 per game – thought that has not meant less controversy over decisions.

Figures released last month showed the Bundesliga and La Liga come next at 0.38 interventions per game, with Serie A at 0.44 and Ligue 1 at 0.47.

In the Champions League, interventions are at a rate of 0.45 per game.

Rosetti also wants all leagues to speak “only one technical language” after controversy over the inconsistent application of laws such as handball.

It is hoped the meeting could lead to a more universal approach to the laws and with how VAR is used.