Barcelona have filed a formal complaint with the European governing body UEFA about the refereeing of Wolfgang Stark in Tuesday's 2-2 Champions League draw at Paris St Germain.

Their main criticism concerns an incident in the second half of the quarter-final first leg in Paris in which Javier Mascherano and Jordi Alba collided and were both lying prone on the ground in the penalty area.

"The club has written to UEFA due to a series of incidents on the pitch in the understanding that objectively speaking it was evident that the referee did not apply the rules of the game," Barca spokesman Toni Freixa told a news conference after a meeting of the club's board on Thursday.

"When two players from the same team are on the floor the referee should stop the match, which did not happen.

"What's more he then obliged them to leave the pitch, in contravention of the rules.

"An incident that is sufficiently serious in a competition like the Champions League to bring to UEFA's attention so that it does not happen again."

Barca were also incensed that Zlatan Ibrahimovic's goal to make the score 1-1 in the 79th minute was allowed to stand when the Swede was clearly in an offside position.

Ibrahimovic, who spent a season at Barca in 2009-10, was playing only because UEFA halved on appeal the two-match ban he received after his sending-off at Valencia in the last 16 round.

"We are fully conscious of the possibility of errors in refereeing and we do not consider ourselves badly treated," Freixa said.

"But it surprises us that in a high-level competition a referee does not know the rules.

"We are not judging the work of referees but the basic principle that a judge should know the law. We hope it does not happen again."

Barca host PSG in the return game at the Nou Camp on Wednesday. (Reporting by Iain Rogers, editing by Mark Meadows and John Mehaffey)

@tdot

Can someone please leave idiots out of this conversation?

Real Madrid haven't been to any big games, huh? And they've been a "ghost" in Europe recently? This "ghost" of yours has reached the CL semis for the last three years now, and they've faced teams like Tottenham, AC Milan, Manchester United, Barcelona, Bayern, Manchester City, Dortmund, and now almost indefinitely either Dortmund, Barca, or Bayern. I'm sorry, but I don't see how these games weren't "big" games.

And the challenge still a red card offense? Hell no. It's a yellow. There is a clear difference between RECKLESS (yellow), and INTENTIONAL (red). Pepe's challenge was RECKLESS. Alves' acting made it look INTENTIONAL. Get it in your head. I've already made my point about Barca screwing up MANY teams with their theatrics already, so learn to read before you comment.

Selective memories :) first for chelsea fans, talking all time about ovrebo, but never about john terry' s goal in 2005   (chelsea 4-2 barça, clear carvalho fault on valdes) i think we are equal with chelsea : 1 ref error costed us qualification in 2005, and yeah ovrebo errors costed them qualif in 2009. with Inter 2010 : first leg 2 goals ofside milito. 2nd leg motta red card due to busquets dive.... and for RM fans, before beiing strong they used to be dirty cause they prefered tackling and agressing than playing football and loosing, now they are more confident so they stopped animalities but 2 years ago, especially after the manita' s match, RM stopped playing football against Barça. ref is part of the game, no more cry babies enough is enough.... and btw all teams dive in 2013.

ohh and we all know that this complaint aim is to put pression for refs in future matches.... but we all know that the master of puting pression in refs is Mourinho, and the clasico fight in C1 already started, so im very disapointed  with my team we should let those dirty acts to Mourinho and concentrate about our qualities even if the openent use ugly methods before and after matches. Football should be on the pitch not at the press, regrets guardiola's  Era who ignored Mou' s dirty talk... Roura and tito should STFU and let players talk on the pitch.

Carvalho was never holding Valdes. Valdes just flopped at the important times like he always does.

lol expected reaction, go see the action mate... but i will not tell you this everytime as you do, France commentators had seen it as all spectators, but you did not noticed that cause you were at the good side that time. i remembered it cause barça was disqualified thats why just stop having selective memory. LOL im tired about hearing chelsea fans even after last year lucky qualification they are still crybabies. i really understand Man Utd fans when i see things like this. 

To Inter...

First off, that video didn't show shit. It only showed that Carvalho was next Valdes and nothing else. Even when they zoomed in, Carvalho was raising his hand showing he is away from any sort of danger. Second, lets not bring up lucky now okay? Because I type one specific, horrible year on here and put the name Chelsea and Barcelona in that year and everyone immediately know what I'm saying. You guys are the epitome of luck... Chelsea on the other hand fought hard last year. We countered when you were weak in the defense and took it to our advantage. We fought hard through 90 minutes with 10 men in the second leg and still survived after you got a penalty. We fought hard for that trophy and earned after 4 years of pain in the CL starting from 2009. Referee robs Barcelona, hah! The only thing the referee is robbing Barcelona from is their pride.

starting from *2008.

LOL. Tiki, the claims about Carvalho against Valdez are pretty laughable, especially when you consider how unfair the red card against Drogba was in the 1st leg. ;)

to vendetta : the best team lost in 2012 could you tell me that im wrong ?? to lodatz maybe its not clear in this video go see others but i saw it at 2005 and i was not alone. its not a claim carvalho clearly stopped valdez i don' t think valdez would stopp it but the foul is clear. 

3min32s is it more clear here for you?

Nope. Still looks like he's not doing shit to me. And by the way, the best team of 2012 lost because the best team of 2012 needs a plan B. Plus there is a long history of Chelsea dominating Barcelona :P

will not argue the link says it all... 1-0 in first leg was a miraculous result, ok so you agree that the best team lost that's just what i wanted to hear. barça were playing at 10 men when iniesta scored, chelsea loves to park the bus against barça sometimes it works sometimes not... if chelsea scored twice in 2009 ovrebo's influence on the game would be inexistant.... so as i say its too easy to put the blame on refs and oppenents.... chelsea domination???long history domination HAHAHA lol  before abrahamovic chelsea was like Man city 5 years ago... its not Man utd or Liverpool. barça shows some respect to their coaches and legends, i' ll respect chelsea when they' ll keep the same coach and respect their legends.     
barça vs chelsea ( 15 games) 5 wins 5 draws 5 losses, what a long historic domination from a club wich 75% of his trophees were won by Mourinho. the best coach in the world btw.

@tiki: yeah, still not buying that one. ;)

Look, for Vendetta and everyone else, I think it's a bit harsh to start trashing Barcelona altogether. It certainly IS true that every team gets lucky decisions. I do believe that 2009 was suspicious as hell, and UEFA will never clear their name, for me, because of that, but I don't think it's fair to diss Barca too badly.

Barcelona have (mainly) won trophies because of their sheer footballing excellence. Yes, it's true that there are some infamous incidents, and yes it's fair to mention them. But, it's not fair to pretend that's the only reason Barcelona won anything, even if I agree that Chelsea have been screwed more than most.

Speaking for myself (and myself only) I think only Chelsea fans and Madrid fans have the right to complain, here. Everyone else is clutching at straws, which is why I generally stay out of it when Real, Barca and Chelsea fans start arguing.

BUT. All the same, let's be honest about the Big Incidents? ;)

Ack. For clarity: I was saying 'not buying that one' about the Carvalho/Valdes bit. Not anything else. :)

You guys post so fast!

yeah but @thetruth if "ALL TEAMS get bad calls for AND against them so please stop talking as if we are the bad guys." then why are Barca filing this complaint? Barca most definitively have had more calls for them rather than against them.

@tikitaka you misspelt Sir Alex Ferguson* as the best coach. ;)

+1 Lodatz, for the complaint as i told, it is for future to anticipate next decisions and put pression in the ref. i totally disaprouve this act cause we all know it will not change 1 st leg result. we should let this dirty stuff to Mourinho as i said, crying about ref had never been Barça's attitude, Barça should take example of Guardiola's attitude and let that to Mourinho...

@tiki: You do know we beat you before pre-Roman era as well when we almost knocked you out of the CL? Then during the Mourinho era at Chelsea, you beat us twice, drew 5 times, and lost 3 times! You do also know during Guardiola's era with Barcelona, they never beat Chelsea? And just to inform you, the only time we ever "parked the bus" against you was in 2012, when in fact, you guys parked the bus 3 years before that against us in 2009! Face the fact that Chelsea has been Barcelona's biggest weakness outside of Spain.

Credit of the picture comes from Lodatz 'Case Study: barcelona's Dominance' thread

Now let us look at Chelsea's history before Roman:

-2 Cup Winners Cup (1998, 1971)
-1 English League Title (1955)
-3 FA Cups (1970, 1997, 2000)
-1 League Cup (1965)
-2 Community Shields (1955, 2000)

We have nearly as much history before the Roman era and we were probably runner ups multiple time.

Know some sh*t before you just trash Chelsea's record vs Barcelona or before Roman.

@devilz Ferguson is the 2 nd relax :) 
"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown in to the sea" ;)