This Thursday, UEFA confirmed the receipt of various documents sent by Real Madrid regarding the Negreira case and announced that "it will take them into account as part of its ongoing investigation." “UEFA can confirm that it has received from Real Madrid a substantial amount of documents related to the ongoing investigation into Barcelona and the matter involving José María Enríquez Negreira, who was vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees of the Royal Spanish Football Federation,” reads the brief statement from the highest European football body.
Shortly after, Real Madrid also issued a letter asking that the investigation proceed as quickly as possible. "The complaint presented by our club incorporates abundant documentation and evidence about facts of extraordinary gravity, which directly affect the integrity of the competition and trust in the arbitration system. Real Madrid considers it essential that, once UEFA has this documentation, the investigation progresses as quickly as possible until its complete conclusion and that the competent bodies adopt the corresponding decisions in accordance with the seriousness of the proven facts," states the statement from the white entity.
Florentino Pérez already announced on May 12 when he called elections for the presidency of the white club that he was collecting documents on the Negreira case, in which Barcelona's payments to the former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) are being investigated, to send them to UEFA. "That we have to listen to the president of the referees say that it is something that we have to forget... We are making a 500-page dossier that we are going to present to UEFA. How are we going to forget it? The biggest case of corruption in the history of football," said the president of Real Madrid. To continue and charge against Barcelona: "Madrid's partners are with me against Negreira's referees. Barça always benefits, but there are other teams that have also been harmed and they tell me about it. Let's see if we are serious and UEFA steps in, because it cannot allow the most important football to be in the hands of 20 years of paid corruption."
Then Barcelona responded and filed a lawsuit prior to filing a complaint against Florentino Pérez for a crime of slander. The Barça club announced in June, when the process began, that if this demand was not “duly attended to,” the entity would file “the corresponding criminal complaint” against the president of Real Madrid.
For its part, UEFA had confirmed that it has kept the procedure opened months before to the Barça club on hold since July 2023, but with the possibility of resuming it ex officio. The Barça club sent a written report to UEFA in this regard and after collecting that information, in July 2023, the UEFA Appeal Committee decided to provisionally admit Barcelona's participation in its competitions. The organization announced that it was suspending the procedure related to the admission of the club due to the Negreira case, although it announced that it may be resumed ex officio at the request of the Ethics and Discipline inspectors (IED) in charge of the case. UEFA then noted that it reserved “a future decision on admission/exclusion from UEFA club competitions.” The Negreira case investigates the payments that Barcelona made for years to José María Enríquez Negreira when he was vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees through companies linked to him. The Prosecutor's Office suspects that these payments, which exceeded seven million euros between 2001 and 2018, could have been aimed at influencing the refereeing establishment, while the Barça club maintains that they corresponded to reports and technical advice on referees.
