3 Real Madrid meanings that do not take for granted that Barça won by the referees

He FC Barcelona has been denounced by the prosecutor’s office as a result of the ‘Negreira’ case and the court has admitted it for processing. According to the letter from the prosecution, the payments made from the Barça club between 2011 and 2018 to Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, then vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees, had the objective of “favoring the club in the decision-making of the referees in the matches that the club played, and thus in the results of the competitions”. Waiting for the promised press conference by the Barça president Joan Laporta, which has been postponed most likely on the recommendation of the lawyers, not all of them are involved in the widespread task that has been unleashed in the media and clubs for a month to discredit the legitimacy of the successes of the best Barça of all time. Among those few prudent voices, that of some prominent members in the history of Barça’s eternal rival, Real Madrid, has special value. Until there is irrefutable evidence to the contrary, they have implicitly shown belief in one of the fundamental principles in the Declaration of Human Rights, the presumption of innocence.

1

VICENTE DEL BOSQUE

“Barça would have won the same with or without Negreira”

Former footballer and former coach of Real Madrid Vicente del Bosque, European and world champion with the white club and also with the Spanish team in his career on the bench, told La Vanguardia on the 2nd that “Barça would have won the same with or without Negreira”. “I defend football more than the clubs. The Negreira case is bad behavior by someone who seriously harms a sport that, even if there were mistakes, was always beautiful and clean. It’s a great shame because it stains the image of FC Barcelona , but also that of Spanish football. And in the end I think that Barcelona would have won the same with and without Negreira. The same as Real Madrid”.

2

RAMON CALDERON

“I didn’t have any feeling of prejudice; what’s more, we won an incredible League”

Ramón Calderón, president of Real Madrid while Enríquez Negreira was vice president of the Technical Arbitration Committee, won two consecutive Leagues, in 2007 and 2008. These days, Calderón had the opportunity to speak twice about the matter. “I didn’t have any feeling of refereeing prejudice. What’s more, we won an incredible League in which Barça took nine points from us with a few days left and we came back,” he assured the media at an event prior to the Classic on Sunday. “Because of my condition as a lawyer, I don’t like parallel trials. I don’t want to go into disquisitions, I don’t know the situation, but the presumption of innocence is a basic principle and we have already seen cases like that of a president (by Sandro Rosell), that he spent two years in jail and was later acquitted.” “Speculating is out of place.”

3

JOSE ANTONIO CAMACHO

“The referees of now cannot be influenced, if we all have an opinion, chaos will come”

José Antonio Camacho, a former Real Madrid player and coach and also a former Spanish coach among other teams, made it clear to OK Diario this past Monday his opposition to precipitating categorical opinions. “I don’t know; the referees right now are referees who cannot be influenced by anything. In those times I don’t know, but if everyone is going to give an opinion, that’s where chaos comes from. There are people like the CSD They should take the necessary measures.”