Barcelona threaten legal action after Florentino Perez's title claims

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Martin Macdonald | Writer

Content writer covering football, formula 1 and movies

Barcelona are considering legal action against Real Madrid and club president Florentino Perez after claims made by the businessman in an astonishing press conference rant on Tuesday.

Perez said Los Blancos should have had 14 La Liga titles instead of 7 under his tenure, claiming that seven were “stolen” from him and that referees had cost the club 18 points this season.

He was quoted as saying: “I’ve only won seven league titles, which could have been 14 because they’ve been stolen from me,” and “The referees have stolen 18 points from us in La Liga”.

The Madrid president framed the issue as part of a broader complaint about Spanish refereeing and tied it to Barcelona and the long-running Negreira case.

Barcelona responded with the following statement:

"Regarding the press conference called by Real Madrid President Florentino Pérez, we inform you that our legal department is carefully reviewing his statements and accusations. These are currently being analyzed, and the next steps are being assessed. We will provide further information on our position and any decisions made when appropriate."

What is the Negreira case

Barcelona have been ordered by a Spanish court to provide every and all documents relating to €7 million worth of payments made to one Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira - the former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA).

The payments to Negreira were made between 2001 and 2018.

The situation was then exacerbated as investigators found that there was no paper trail available for these payments. If there once was a paper trail, it has been lost.

Barcelona allege that these payments were made for consulting purposes as Negreira provided them with scouting reports on referees.

Real Madrid and president Florentino Perez demanded an inquiry into the payments and they have been the main pursuers of alleged justice.

“Three years ago, we learned about the Negreira Case," Perez said at the press conference.

"The biggest scandal in history. They’ve been paying for two decades, but now it’s the same referees for this third decade. We will present a substantial dossier to UEFA so they can tackle this issue at its root and resolve the case for the good of world football.

“We’re preparing a 500-page dossier that I’ll send to UEFA when the competition is over. I’ve already spoken with them. There’s no precedent for this in the history of world football. It’s the biggest corruption case ever.

“The Real Madrid members are with me in my fight against Negreira case. It’s not always Real Madrid that suffers; other teams do too. Barca always benefits. Let’s see if UEFA gets involved in this matter. I didn’t come here so that the referees could get rich off Barcelona’s money.”

Barcelona have maintained their innocence throughout the investigation and president Joan Laporta typically swung the spotlight back onto Real Madrid, alluding to the club's alleged close relationship with referees historically.