Barcelona to consider legal action after Real Madrid president Florentino Perez's bizarre press conference

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Barcelona said it will contemplate taking legal action against Real Madrid and the club's president, Florentino Perez, after he accused LaLiga's champions of corruption in a wide-ranging but bizarre press conference on Tuesday.

Perez called for new elections and announced his intention to run again during his remarks in the Spanish capital, though it was a strange affair in which the executive took shots at several people and organizations he argued were mounting a smear campaign against him. Perez also accused Barcelona of corruption relating to an ongoing investigation into Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, the ex-vice president of Spain's Technical Committee of Referees (CTA). Barcelona allegedly paid Negreira around $10 million from 2001 to 2018, though the club claims he was hired as an external consultant and Negreira has denied he was bribed.

"We have discovered that for the past three years we have been facing an unprecedented case of corruption, the biggest scandal in history: the Negreira case," he said. "The referees from that era are still officiating in competitions such as LaLiga. We are going to compile a comprehensive dossier to present to UEFA so that they can nip this in the bud. The CTA president says it's something we should forget. We're putting together a 500-page dossier that we'll send out as soon as the season ends."

Perez also described the Negreira case as "the biggest scandal in history."

"It is incomprehensible that we are still seeing referees from that era in a competition like LaLiga." he added. "This has gone on for two decades of payments. They are the same referees, and we are preparing a significant dossier that we are going to submit immediately to UEFA so that it can address the issue at its root and resolve the Negreira case for the good of world football."

Shortly after Perez's press conference came to an end, Barcelona said it was considering legal action against the Real Madrid president.

"After the press conference conducted by Real Madrid's president Florentino Perez, we inform that our legal department is carefully studying his words and accusations," the club wrote in a statement. "In these moments, the club is analysing the situation and deciding which are the next steps to take. As soon as it's considered opportune, we will inform further about our position and the decisions we make."

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