Barcelona are facing renewed demands to be stripped of titles after Real Madrid submitted 50,000 pages of evidence to UEFA alleging the club made illicit payments to a senior Spanish refereeing official.
The dossier, delivered on Thursday, concerns more than £7m paid between 2001 and 2018 to Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, who was vice-president of Spain’s technical committee of referees. UEFA said a “substantial amount of documents” had been received by its ethics and disciplinary inspectors and would now be assessed.
The development adds to a difficult period for Pep Guardiola, whose legacy is under scrutiny following Manchester City’s guilty verdict over Premier League rules. Calls are growing for two of the three clubs he managed to lose honours won during his career.
Barcelona have consistently denied wrongdoing. They say the payments were for scouting and technical reports supplied by a company belonging to Negreira, who is 81, and have maintained that no sporting influence has been proved.
When the allegations emerged in 2023, Barcelona president Joan Laporta said: “Let it be clear Barca have never bought referees and Barca never had the intention of buying referees, absolutely never.”
La Liga said it could not investigate because too much time had passed. UEFA began its own inquiry, which appeared to have stalled until this year, when Real Madrid president Florentino Perez promised during his re-election campaign to investigate what he called “the biggest scandal in history”.
Barcelona have stressed that the case, which began in 2023, was never closed and that the club had answered every request from the authorities. The allegations relate to the period before Negreira left the committee responsible, among other duties, for appointing match officials.
Guardiola managed Barcelona from 2008 to 2012, overseeing a side widely regarded as one of the greatest in football history. With Lionel Messi at its core, the club won La Liga in three of those four seasons and claimed every available trophy in 2011: La Liga, Copa del Rey, the Champions League, Spanish Super Cup, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup.
Although the Negreira case concerns Spanish domestic football, the claims have revived memories among English clubs of controversial matches involving Guardiola’s Barcelona.
Chelsea still recall the 2009 Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, when referee Tom Henning Ovrebo rejected appeals for what manager Guus Hiddink called “three clear penalties”. Andres Iniesta’s stoppage-time equaliser sent Barcelona through on away goals, prompting Didier Drogba to shout “disgrace”. Chelsea defender Jose Bosingwa said he believed Ovrebo had been “bought”, while Hiddink described the decision as “an injustice”.
Arsenal supporters remember Robin van Persie’s dismissal against Barcelona in 2011 after Massimo Busacca issued a second yellow card for shooting one second after the whistle. “It is a joke,” said Van Persie, while Arsene Wenger called it “frankly, embarrassing”.
Manchester United lost to Guardiola’s Barcelona in the 2009 Rome final and again at Wembley two years later.
Jose Mourinho, who faced Guardiola’s Barcelona during his first spell at Real Madrid and later competed against him in Manchester, is also likely to intensify the dispute. After losing to Atletico last month, he criticised the appointment of a referee by the committee, which no longer includes Negreira but remains under scrutiny while the allegations persist.
