Barcelona President fuels outrage with latest comments about Real Madrid – ‘They represent…’ | OneFootball

Barcelona President Joan Laporta has fanned the flames of conflict with Real Madrid, by commenting that Los Blancos ‘represent power’. Relations between the two clubs were better than ever just three years ago, but the two have distanced themselves over the past year.

During Real Madrid’s General Assembly last month, President Florentino Perez took aim at Barcelona for the ongoing corruption scandal surrounding Barcelona’s payments to former Vice-President of the Referees Committee Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira. Meanwhile Laporta has since commented that Real Madrid are ‘obsessed with Barcelona’.

During an event with La Vanguardia on Thursday, Laporta was asked about sitting in the director’s box at the Santiago Bernabeu. Frequently, Perez is seen sitting with a selection of government ministers, including President of the Madrid Community Isabel Diaz Ayuso, and Atletico Madrid fan and Mayor Jose Luis Martinez Almeida.

Laporta and Perez in the director’s box at the Bernabeu, with Diaz Ayuso.

Image via Angel Martinez/Getty Images

“Real Madrid represents power and Barca, freedom. I don’t know if business deals are made in the Bernabeu’s VIP box. There is power. Here it’s a different story; we’re more for democracy and freedom. We have a proper and cordial relationship with Florentino Perez,” Laporta was quoted by MD.

‘Barcelona have different rules’ – Laporta

The other main headline from Real Madrid’s General Assembly was Perez’s plans to change the ownership model, selling off a percentage of the club to an external investor. Laporta said this was not on the table for the Blaugrana.

“At Barca, we’re not even considering any of this. I’ve been hearing for four years that we’d become a public limited company. We guarantee that Barca will always be owned by its members. It’s an added value we have and it connects us with the community.”

Laporta’s detractors have argued that with the mounting debt, Barcelona could become enslaved to their financial backers. During this week’s 3-1 win over Atletico Madrid, Laporta spent his day with investors who put money into the Camp Nou renovation project. The Barcelona President assured that the same rules do not apply to Barcelona as any other business.

“The investors who Goldman Sachs secured for the stadium liked the fact that we weren’t a public limited company. We’ve created a financial structure to avoid mortgages. We haven’t even considered it. It would hurt us a lot because it’s part of our very essence. Some people don’t see Barca in its entirety.”

“Barca isn’t a business, it’s an institution. We have different rules. We’re a modern institution, committed to sustainability, equality, and diversity. We’re a Catalan institution, open to the world. All of this leads me to believe that Barca should always belong to its members. My fellow board members and I are the only ones who can guarantee this. I’ve spoken to Bayern Munich and others about it. They always end up having problems with their members.”

Laporta no longer in favour of The Superleague

The primary point of agreement in recent years between Real Madrid and Barcelona was The Superleague project, and the Catalan side distancing themselves from it is credited as the reason behind Perez’s change of tune on Barcelona. Laporta confirmed the Catalan side were no longer pursuing the idea.

“We want peace and sustainability in football. I came across the Super League and went ahead with it because I thought there were many differences with state-owned clubs. It has dragged on, and all this uncertainty doesn’t benefit us.”

Image via A22

A major part of the project was the supposed introduction of ‘free football’, with one streaming service providing a free global broadcast of games, instead of auctioning off television rights. Laporta has revealed that Real Madrid are behind said platform, Unify.

“We reached an initial agreement with the Unify platform, but then I found out that Real Madrid were behind it. We should always give peace a chance. It’s better if we’re all on board. Conflict certainly doesn’t benefit anyone.”