Sergio Ramos hits out at rival Gerard Pique as he blames Barcelona defender for red card in El Clasico
The Real Madrid captain was sent-off for a two-footed lunge at Barcelona match-winner Lionel Messi in El Clasico
SERGIO RAMOS has continued his feud with Gerard Pique by saying his Barcelona rival "likes to talk about referees".
The Real Madrid captain was shown a straight red card by referee Alejandro José Hernández for a two-footed lunge at Lionel Messi.
As Ramos was exiting the pitch, he gestured towards Pique with his hand, and appeared to say “Talk now. Talk now,” to Pique, who had obviously wound him up over accusations of a conspiracy theory suggesting that La Liga officials favour Real.
The 31-year-old also pointed to the director’s box at the Bernabeu following his red card, before showing the thumbs up as Pique was talking to his team-mates.
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Now the Real Madrid man has shed more light on the ongoing feud with his Spain international team-mate.
He told : "For me, the red card was excessive. I admit that I was late after seeing it 40 times but I wasn't trying to injure anyone.
"Messi did well and jumped out of the way but I didn't touch him and it had a big impact on the game.
"Pique likes to talk about the referees, with so much pressure on them with his tweets and complaints all the time. I don't regret my gesture towards him, I just regret leaving my team with 10 players."
Pique suggested in January that Spanish referees have a pro-Real bias.
But the situation came to a head last week when Cristiano Ronaldo scored two goals in the Champions League against Bayern Munich, despite the Portuguese looking offside for both goals.
Pique simply tweeted “…” with images of the moments Ronaldo should have been caught offside.
Ramos hit back at Pique ahead of Sunday night’s ill-tempered Clasico.
He said: “He should rewind and look back to the PSG game and see if he thinks the same about the referees.”
Pique had also earlier made gestures towards the director’s box following Barca’s defeat to Villarreal, which was interpreted as blaming La Liga president Javier Tebas for two controversial decisions in the game.
After Spain’s friendly win over France the pair said how they had put their recent feud behind them, but then bizarrely went on to talk about each other’s clubs almost immediately.