Barcelona studying legal action as Florentino Perez announces Negreira dossier for UEFA

Real Madrid have recently improved relations with UEFA after ending the Superleague.

“We won with the Super League at the CJEU, and now we’re negotiating with UEFA. We want free football, so that children in Africa can watch football for free, like they do with the Club World Cup. This isn’t just for Real Madrid, it’s for the good of football. UEFA has realised this and we’re making progress in a very positive way.”

‘Helping Barcelona’ was before Negreira case

Back in 2024, Real Madrid President Florentino Perez declared at the club’s General Assembly that clubs like Barcelona and Real Madrid ‘have to help each other’. When asked about that comment, he incorrectly claimed that this was after the Negreira case revelations.

“That was long before the Negreira case. We only recently learned about it; we couldn’t have imagined that the head of the referees was distributing money from Barcelona for two decades. This issue has come to light late. Since then, we’ve been compiling a dossier and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. It’s the biggest corruption case in the history of football. For the good of football. Nobody in the world would even consider paying off referees. It’s inconceivable.”

“We’ve been left empty-handed, and I’ve been here I don’t know how many seasons and I’ve only won seven European Cups and seven league titles, which could have been 14 because they’ve been stolen from me. We’ve made a video about the 18 points they’ve taken from us this season. I can’t stay silent about that. I don’t want to be showered with praise all day, but this conspiracy between some people at SER, others at COPE… No, that’s not enough.”

Perez noted that he had the backing of the Real Madrid members in their battle against the Negreira ‘and others’, although he did not specify who he was referring to.

“The Real Madrid members are with me in my fight against Negreira and the others. It’s not always Real Madrid that suffers; other teams do too. Barça always benefits. UEFA will get involved in this matter, they will. It’s unacceptable that they’re under suspicion of corruption paid for over 20 years. We’ll see what happens in both the criminal and sporting aspects with UEFA. And we’ll see what happens. UEFA has agreed for us to send the entire dossier. I didn’t come here to let the referees get rich off Barcelona’s money. I came here to fight.”

Barcelona announce potential legal action

In a statement released shortly after Perez’s press conference, Barcelona announced that their legal department were studying legal action following his statements and accusations. Throughout the Negreira case, Barcelona have maintained that their payments were for consultancy and scouting reports on refereees.