Real Madrid is growing frustrated as an investigation into Barcelona’s payments to companies linked to former Spanish refereeing chief Jose María Enriquez Negreira approaches its third year.
Xabi Alonso has echoed Real Madrid president Florentino Perez’s call for “justice” over the massive corruption scandal involving rivals Barcelona. The Negreira incident has rocked the Spanish soccer world for more than two and a half years, and a criminal investigation is still ongoing.
Barcelona have previously admitted to making payments worth 8.4 million euros (about 730 million yen) between 2001 and 2018 to companies linked to former Spanish refereeing chief José María Enriquez Negreira, but Barça president Joan Laporta reiterated that they were made in exchange for scouting reports on La Liga referees.
Negreira, however, denies accepting bribes to influence referee decisions. However, these claims did not satisfy Real, with Perez calling it “the biggest scandal in football history” at the club’s Christmas reception for the media this week.
“It is completely incomprehensible that institutions would leave Madrid alone in this fight,” Perez insisted. “How is it possible that the chief judge would tell us to forget about it?
“How can we forget the biggest scandal in the history of football? Why would the RFEF (Spanish Football Federation) and La Liga behave like this? They have a duty to ensure integrity.”
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Perez added: “Some club could have been demoted as a victim of the Negreira incident.” Our football has been damaged and justice must be done. ”
Alonso backed Perez ahead of Wednesday’s Copa del Rey trip to Talavera de la Reina, saying: “We share the position of the club and the president. The most important thing is that, in the interests of football, we need to find out the truth about what happened.”
The Real manager continued: “We are all human and we all make mistakes, but here an incident occurred that needs to be investigated.
“Overseas, what happened here really shocks people. There are no consequences, no accountability. That’s why it’s so important to find out what happened. This is not normal and cannot be taken as normal.”
Laporta was asked to respond to Perez’s comments later on Tuesday, ahead of Barça’s cup match away to Guadalajara. Laporta replied: “Acute Barcelitis in Madrid suits us because they are not worried about what they should be worried about.”
“If the discourse has changed, it’s because there were similarities between the projects in the past. They’re still dragging on the Negreira issue because it’s not working for them.”
Both teams will play a Copa del Rey match this weekend before playing their final league match of 2025. Hansi Flick’s Barcelona are currently at the top of La Liga, four points ahead of Real, although they were five points behind Alonso’s side after losing in El Clasico at the end of October.
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