they went together Florentino Perez y John Laporta in almost all. They were together. And besides, they worked together. Madrid and Barça had woven an alliance that only broke on the pitch. They went together in the European Super League project, together with Juventus, for whom management problems (Andrea Agnelli is no longer its president) have made him forget about this project. They were together in battle against Javier Tebas, the president of La Liga.
And they worked together with identical financial partners (Sixth Street activated the first two Barça economic levers) while both clubs chose the same path for the commercial exploitation of their new stadiums: an agreement with Legends, an American consultancy commissioned by Florentino to obtain the maximum possible resources from the Bernabéu, which is about to end.
Identical order has been processed The door for when the new Camp Nou is built in a year and a half, coinciding with the 125th anniversary of the club’s foundation. Even if it is only at 60% capacity, according to the first plans for the works to be carried out by Limak, a Turkish company.
They went together. They were together. And they worked together until the Negreira case broke out, the payment for 17 years from Barça to the then vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees, which is being investigated by the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office. So, Florentino abandoned Laporta.
Careful choice of times
And he did not do it when SER Catalunya uncovered ´(February 15) the economic link that united the former referee leader with the Barça club. The white president remained silent, staying out of the complaint, first individual from the clubs (Sevilla and Espanyol championed those protests), which was later joined by LaLiga in a statement from the First and Second team collective, where there was no signature of Barça or Madrid. They both refused.
Florentino, extremely careful in choosing the times, remained silent, despite the fact that the storm over Barça due to this case was acquiring more and more force, even causing the intervention of Pedro Sanchez, the president of the Spanish government, demanding an in-depth investigation to clarify it.
The president of Madrid waited for the Prosecutor’s Office to deliver its report, to abandon Laporta. He did it just in the week of the League classic, days after losing the team of Ancelotti at the Bernabéu against Barça (0-1, first leg of the Cup semifinal).
He did so with a statement in which he justified his delay in reacting, subjected as he was to pressure from a broad sector of the white fans to intervene.
“The gravity of the accusations”
Had Florentino an argument. “Given the seriousness of the accusations made by the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office against FC Barcelona and two of its presidents for well-founded suspicions of corruption and their relations with the former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees, José María Enríquez Negreira”.
He did not mention the white club in that first official note to Sandro Rosell. nor to Joseph Maria Bartomeu. Florentino had an argument and, above all, a key moment to announce that they would study “actions” in the Negreira case. He urgently called his board of directors, who, meeting this afternoon in Madrid, will name those actions.
The Real Madrid TV video of Clos Gómez
One action was based on the broadcast of a report on the official Madrid television channel about Clos Gómez, a former collegiate who is now the director of the VAR project. A video was broadcast on Real Madrid TV reviewing data and images that the referee took when he was active in which he allegedly acted against the white club.
“What Real Madrid TV has done is unworthy, base and indecent,” denounced Iturralde González, the former collegiate who is now a commentator on Cadena SER’s Carrusel Deportivo after seeing how an exhaustive analysis of the time was made on the official white channel. of Clos Gómez, indicating that he showed Madrid 102 yellow cards and eight red ones.
Madrid, which had been silent in the Negreira case, has taken action. His idea to appear as a private prosecution in the case thus certifying the total rupture. the idyll between Florentino and Laporta it’s over. It has been the white leader who has decided the entire process of this relationship.
From the reason for the divorce to the moment chosen, very sensitive because it is in the previous week of the League classic, going through the visualization of this break. And the president of Barça, cornered by Thebes, whom he points out as one of the major culprits, he sees how Florentino abandons him, the first to appear as a private prosecution. Even before the League or Federation itself does.
