Against a backdrop of conflict around the Negreira affair, the president of Barça, Joan Laporta, admitted to having very poor relations with his counterparts at Real Madrid, while the two teams have a meeting this Sunday (8 p.m.) in the final of the Spanish Super Cup.
A little extra spice for an already electric poster. Before the always highly anticipated Clasico between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid this Sunday (8 p.m.), in the final of the Spanish Super Cup in Jeddah, Joan Laporta took it upon himself to increase the pressure with unequivocal statements on the Merengue rival.
“Our relations with Real are bad, they are broken, because various problems have pushed us apart. We were already eternal rivals, but a situation occurred which made relations less good,” declared the Barça president on Saturday, all smiles, speaking to the Spanish media.
“Respect must be maintained”
“That does not mean that there is no respect. It must be maintained in a civilized manner, but relationships are totally broken. Everything is manageable in football, as in life, but it depends on the will of each person,” he continued, referring, without directly naming it, to the famous Negreira affair, an alleged refereeing scandal involving FC Barcelona.
Used to tackling his best enemy on this subject, Florentino Pérez once again spoke of it at the end of December as “the biggest scandal in the history of football”, pointing out “an affair which tarnishes the image of our sport and underlines the need for a radical reform of the structures of Spanish arbitration”.
In this sprawling case, Barça and some of its former leaders are under investigation for alleged payments, of more than 7.3 million euros, that the club allegedly paid to José María Enríquez Negreira, former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), between 2001 and 2018, according to a complaint which caused an earthquake in the world of Spanish football.
Justice must determine whether these payments could have been used to influence referees and the competition in one way or another, which Barça denies, saying they concerned reports to advise the club on refereeing matters.
