A Madrid court has summoned Real Madrid president Florentino Perez and FC Barcelona to a conciliation hearing on November 25, a step that could open the way to criminal defamation proceedings against Perez, according to sources close to the case who spoke on Monday.
Barcelona set the process in motion on June 12, after Perez accused the Catalan club in May of maneuvering to win favorable treatment from match officials.
The club says it wants to force Perez to withdraw statements it calls knowingly false, defamatory and damaging to its image and reputation, and it has warned that it will file a criminal complaint if the conciliation fails to settle the matter.
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The row goes back to a May 12 press conference, where Perez addressed the so-called Negreira case, one of the most controversial scandals in modern Spanish football.
The affair came to light in early 2023, when investigators revealed that Barcelona had paid companies linked to Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, a former vice-president of Spain‘s refereeing committee, and Spanish courts have since examined payments of up to 7 million euros made over almost two decades to determine whether the money was meant to buy a competitive advantage.
Barcelona has consistently denied any wrongdoing and insists the payments covered technical reports on referees, while a court dismissed bribery charges against the club in 2024.
Perez, who has led Real Madrid since 2009 after an earlier spell from 2000 to 2006, nonetheless called the affair “the most serious case of corruption in football” and said he could never have imagined Barcelona handing money to the head of the referees.
He went further by claiming that Real Madrid had been robbed of league titles, telling reporters that he had won seven leagues, that he could have won twice as many, and that the others “were stolen” from him.
