Barcelona President announces legal action against Real Madrid counterpart Florentino Perez | OneFootball

Barcelona President Rafa Yuste has announced that the club will take legal action against Real Madrid counterpart Florentino Perez. During a controversial press conference, Perez accused Barcelona of ‘stealing seven leagues’ from him, citing the Negreira case.

Yuste, who is the interim president until the return of the elected Joan Laporta on the 1st of July, had confirmed that the Catalan giants were considering legal action against Perez. Barcelona are currently defending themselves in court against a charge of sporting corruption, but have denied all wrongdoing, and are yet to be found guilty.

Barcelona announce legal action against Florentino Perez

Perez’s words drew backlash from many areas, but later that evening, the club announced that they had asked their legal team to examine Perez’s comments for potential slander.

“It’s one thing to stand up for yourself with pride, and another to go behind your back doing certain things. Do you really think you can threaten us by saying you’ll send 500 documents to UEFA? I don’t know what this guy is thinking. Well, we’ll see it in court and hopefully they’ll get what they deserve,” Yuste explained to Sport at a club event. He confirmed they would pursuing the matter in court.

“The Real Madrid president hasn’t come to terms with Barcelona’s success. There’s a difference between jealousy and rage. Do you really think this man can accuse us of stealing league titles and winning thanks to the referees?”

“We will take legal action against Florentino for resorting to slander to destabilise us. Our badge is untouchable. No-one tarnishes the name of Barca. So, we’ll see you in court.”

What did Florentino Perez say about Barcelona?

During his lengthy press conference three weeks ago when he announced elections, Perez dedicated some of his speech to the Negreira case, calling it the biggest scandal in the history of football.

“We couldn’t have imagined that the head of the referees was distributing money from Barcelona for two decades. This issue has come to light late. Since then, we’ve been compiling a dossier and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. It’s the biggest corruption case in the history of football. For the good of football. Nobody in the world would even consider paying off referees. It’s inconceivable,” he explained, although it has not been confirmed that any of this happened.

“We’ve been left empty-handed, and I’ve been here I don’t know how many seasons and I’ve only won seven European Cups and seven league titles, which could have been 14 because they’ve been stolen from me. We’ve made a video about the 18 points they’ve taken from us this season. I can’t stay silent about that.”