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Former FC Barcelona presidents Rosell and Bartomeu leave the court after being heard in the Negreira case on September 18, 2025 [Bruna Casas\/Reuters]What are Real Madrid\u2019s accusations against Barcelona?<\/p>\nEXPLAINER<\/p>\n
Real Madrid accuse Barcelona of paying former refereeing official Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira between 2001 and 2018.<\/p>\n
Real Madrid have urged UEFA to conclude its ongoing investigation into the Negreira case with \u201cutmost urgency\u201d after European football\u2019s governing body confirmed receiving a dossier from them on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The case pertains to Barcelona football club allegedly paying millions of dollars to the company of Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, the former vice president of Spanish football\u2019s refereeing committee, between 2001 and 2018, to try to influence referee decisions.<\/p>\n
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Barcelona have denied any wrongdoing or conflict of interest and said they paid him for reports and advice related to refereeing.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s statement by UEFA was the latest update in its investigation into the payments opened in 2023, while there is an ongoing Spanish criminal case as well.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s everything you need to know about the case:<\/p>\n
What is the Real Madrid vs Barcelona Negreira case?<\/p>\n
Barcelona allegedly paid more than 7.3 million euros ($7.95m) between 2001 and 2018 to firms owned by Negreira, who was vice president of the refereeing committee of the Spanish football association from 1993-2018.<\/p>\n
In March 2023, Spanish prosecutors formally charged Barcelona as well as two of the club\u2019s former presidents, Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell, and Negreira and his son, Javier Enriquez Negreira, with corruption over the affair.<\/p>\n
Barcelona was accused of corruption in sports, fraudulent management and the falsification of mercantile documentation; it denies any wrongdoing and says the payments were made for technical refereeing reports.<\/p>\n
In June 2023, UEFA\u2019s investigators decided that Barcelona would not face any punishment, and the club has continued to play in European competition since then.<\/p>\n
Former FC Barcelona presidents Rosell and Bartomeu leave the court after being heard in the Negreira case on September 18, 2025 [Bruna Casas\/Reuters]What are Real Madrid\u2019s accusations against Barcelona?<\/p>\n
Real Madrid have primarily accused Barcelona of sports corruption and influencing refereeing decisions through payments to Negreira.<\/p>\n
The club joined the complaint filed by Spanish prosecutors against Barcelona and expressed their \u201cdeep concern about the seriousness of the facts\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to reports in Spanish media, Real Madrid have requested that Barcelona be stripped of the nine titles they won between 2001 and 2018, the years in which the Catalan club paid Negreira.<\/p>\n
What have UEFA, Real Madrid, and Barcelona said?<\/p>\n
All three entities issued separate statements on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
UEFA: The governing body confirmed receiving a \u201csubstantial amount of documents\u201d \u2014 reportedly worth 50,000 pages \u2014 from Real Madrid pertaining to the investigation. \u201cThe UEFA Ethics and Disciplinary Inspectors have also received these latest documents which they will assess as part of their ongoing review,\u201d it said in a statement.
\nReal Madrid: The club issued its statement following UEFA\u2019s announcement and confirmed that it had provided \u201cextensive documentation and evidence regarding events of extraordinary seriousness, which directly affect the integrity of the competition and confidence in the refereeing system.\u201d It urged that UEFA\u2019s investigation proceed with \u201cutmost urgency until its full conclusion\u201d now that the dossier has been handed over.
\nBarcelona: Accused party Barcelona issued a statement clarifying that the latest development pertains to the same ongoing investigation, and that \u201cproceedings have not been reopened because they have never been closed.\u201d \u201cAs of today, they have not made any new requests to FC Barcelona nor have they forwarded Real Madrid\u2019s complaint to the Club. Should they do so, the Club will respond accordingly, as it has done up to now.\u201d
\nWhat else is going on between Real Madrid and Barcelona?<\/p>\n
Some reports in Spain claim that Real Madrid president Florentino Perez and FC Barcelona have been summoned to appear before a Madrid court on November 25 for a conciliation hearing ahead of possible criminal proceedings for defamation against Perez.<\/p>\n
The hearing follows legal action launched by Barcelona on June 12 over comments made by Perez in May in the Negreira case.<\/p>\n
Barcelona said the action was intended to force Perez to retract statements it described as knowingly false, defamatory and damaging to the club\u2019s image and reputation.<\/p>\n
The club warned that if the conciliation process failed, it would file a criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
The dispute centres on comments Perez made at a May 12 news conference concerning the so-called Negreira case.<\/p>\n
Perez described the affair as \u201cthe most serious case of corruption in football\u201d, adding: \u201cWe could never have imagined Barcelona giving money to the head of the referees.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also claimed Real Madrid had been denied league titles, saying: \u201cI\u2019ve won seven leagues. I could have won twice as many. The others were stolen from me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither entity has issued any statement since UEFA acknowledged receiving Real Madrid\u2019s dossier on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Will the case have an impact on El Clasico?<\/p>\n
The Spanish football giants will meet in the first leg of El Clasico on October 25 in La Liga. The case will have no bearing on the scheduling of the match but could provide an added touch of drama to what is known as one of the most bitter football rivalries in club football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXPLAINER Real Madrid accuse Barcelona of paying former refereeing official Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira between 2001 and 2018.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,2057,2542,596,481892,2020,588,85],"class_list":["post-914559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-europe","tag-explainer","tag-football","tag-investigative","tag-spain","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}