Estrada-Fernández, a former referee and prosecutor involved in the "Negreira case", disclosed to the public on his social media account that Real Madrid has officially applied to the presiding judge of the "Negreira case" for full access to all economic documents related to Barcelona’s relevant payments over more than a decade.
Times have changed, and the former "superficial ally" relationship between Real Madrid and Barcelona, based on interests, has been completely terminated. Florentino Pérez’s promise to "fight to the end" at the general assembly of members is being fulfilled. Real Madrid’s current strategy not only aims to promote the judicial characterization of the case but also plans to claim substantial economic compensation from Barcelona on the grounds of "damaging reputation and interests".
Real Madrid’s legal team is evaluating further actions, including the possibility of claiming huge damages from Barcelona over the Negreira case, citing the potential impact of the relevant payments on the fairness of matches and sports order. The potential sports-related sanctions still depend on Article 4.1 of UEFA’s regulations. At the same time, some clubs have gradually begun to realize that in the face of the currently disclosed facts, their previous response may have been insufficient.
The case materials involve a number of details: including the purchase of aloe vera products, reports written on upcoming matches and events, and boxes allegedly filled with "technical reports" that were never handed over to the coaching staff (some relevant parties have confirmed this when testifying in court); in addition, there are contradictions in the statements of Barcelona’s senior management during the court trial regarding whether they knew the identity of the vice-chairman of the
Technical Refereeing Committee at that time. Behind all this, the core doubt still points to the same question: where exactly did the 8.4 million euros paid by Barcelona to companies related to Negreira go.
On the premise that the fact of payment has been confirmed, the key issue to be clarified is whether there was sports corruption between 2001 and 2018. The reality is that at present, it seems that only Real Madrid is continuing to promote the investigation, hoping to find out whether the controversial situations over the years really mean the "buying of will" as alleged by the outside world, which some recognize and others firmly deny.
A few months ago, Real Madrid successfully promoted the extension of the case investigation period to March 1st, which was the first step for Real Madrid to emphasize that it "never turned away from the incident". UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin once described the incident as "the most serious incident I have ever seen in football". While La Liga and the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) rarely appeared during the witness phase, Real Madrid’s legal team took the initiative to attack, expressing more clearly their position: Real Madrid and Spanish football "have had their images manipulated, and matches have been distorted by incomprehensible decisions".
On the morning of December 24th local time, as Christmas Eve and Christmas approached, it was learned that Real Madrid had filed a judicial application to obtain Barcelona’s financial audit, due diligence materials and bill records from 2010 to 2021 within a 10-day period to understand the capital flow during this phase; at the same time, it requested to review the records of payments to the following companies in the budget documents from 2010 to 2018: Dasnil 95, Nilda, Soccercam, Best Norton,
Tresep and Radamento, all of which are alleged to be related to the case. Real Madrid applied for a total of 625 documents, aiming to track the flow of funds and find their final destination.
A few weeks ago, a series of questions raised by Real Madrid’s lawyers during Joan Laporta’s court appearance also to a certain extent confirmed the signals observed by the outside world from their public interactions—including his recent photos with Čeferin and Nasser Al-Khelaifi, as well as signs of a relaxation in his relationship with Javier Tebas. The inquiry covered multiple key points, including: whether he was informed of the payments to companies related to Negreira; who made the relevant decisions; whether the board of directors was aware; why there was an oral contract with an amount of up to 500,000 euros; two bills during his tenure; whether Negreira could still write reports while he was at Fenerbahçe during the 2008-09 season; whether Carles Navarro, the team representative, was the custodian of the "647 reports"; why direct contracts were not signed, but instead, payments of up to one million euros were "collected" or received through third-party companies; and whether the club had claimed recovery after confirming that some companies did not provide actual services.
After this round of inquiries, Real Madrid took another new step—applying for audits and documentary materials, and this will obviously not be the end. Real Madrid and Barcelona, that is, Florentino and Laporta, seem to have returned to their "more natural state": regarding each other as competitors or even opponents. The time that Real Madrid’s senior management has been patiently waiting for has come, and it is highly likely that the case investigation will continue to be extended beyond March 1st.
