MADRID: Barcelona defender Gerard Pique will miss the first four matches of the new La Liga season for abusing match officials in the European champions’ Spanish Super Cup defeat to Athletic Bilbao.

Pique was shown a straight red card in the second leg of the tie on Monday, which ended 1-1, for taking his protests toward the linesman too far as Barca failed to overcome a 4-0 first leg deficit.

The length of the ban was confirmed by Spanish football’s disciplinary committee on Wednesday.

Pique will now miss Barca’s daunting rematch away to Athletic Bilbao on Sunday and the trip to Atletico Madrid on September 12, as well as home games against Malaga and Levante.

According to the referee’s report, Pique seriously insulted the linesman using abusive language.

However, despite apologizing for his actions, Pique insisted he did not use the language alleged by the referee.

“I want to apologize because the attitude with which I protested to the linesman wasn’t correct,” he wrote on his official Twitter account.

“It was a game of great tension in which we were playing for a lot.

“However, at no moment did I use any type of insult toward him.”

Barcelona had appealed against the red card on Tuesday.

“In the arguments presented we wanted to make clear that the player did not address the assistant referee in the terms written afterwards by the referee Velasco Carballo in the referee’s report,” the said in a statement.

Barca midfielder Ivan Rakitic also defended his teammate’s actions, claiming the referee had been too quick to produce the red card.

“The ban worries me because Pique is an important player. A sending-off like that also worries me because he spoke without any bad intent, it was the nerves,” the Croatian said on Tuesday.

“If this merits a sending-off there will be many in every game.”

Pedro to join Chelsea

Premier League champions Chelsea have pipped Manchester United to the signing of Spain winger Pedro Rodriguez from Barcelona, according to British press reports on Wednesday.

The BBC reported that Chelsea had agreed a fee of £21 million (29.8m euros, $32.9m) with the reigning European champions and that the 28-year-old was on a flight to London to finalize the terms of the transfer.

If completed, the deal will bring an end to a summer-long transfer saga surrounding Pedro, who had been linked to Manchester City as well as United, although it was the Old Trafford club who appeared most likely to sign him.

Pedro scored the winning goal for Barcelona in last week’s dramatic 5-4 extra-time defeat of Sevilla in the UEFA Super Cup in Tbilisi.

However, he has fallen down the pecking order at the Camp Nou under Luis Enrique, who has preferred the all-star front three of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez and has used the Canary-Islands born player more sparingly.