Barcelona President hits back at Real Madrid’s Florentino Perez – ‘Complaints are due to Superleague’ | OneFootball

After Real Madrid President Florentino Perez utilised his Christmas address to place the focus back on the Negreira case and Barcelona, his counterpart Joan Laporta has waited less than 24 hours to respond. Laporta himself was in court on Friday to give testimony, as the Catalan giants fight a corruption charge.

Laporta’s testimony was leaked on Tuesday, and it was revealed that he had claimed he had never met Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, former Vice-President of the CTA and the man Barcelona are accused of trying to influence. Perez had referred to it as the ‘biggest scandal in the history of football’, and called for punishment.

Speaking on his arrival in Guadalajara ahead of Barcelona’s clash in the Copa del Rey, Laporta had a retort for Perez.

“The Barcelonaitis is getting worse, and I see it’s taken root in the hearts of Madrid fans. Nothing more to say. We have nothing more to say; we came here to play football and put on a good show,” he told Sport.

Laporta: ‘Real Madrid complaints due to Superleague’

Image via Angel Martinez/Getty Images

The Blaugrana chief put Perez’s comments down to Los Blancos’ current struggles.

“Things are going well for us because they’re more worried about us than they should be. They keep dragging out the Negreira issue to justify something that isn’t working out for them.”

He also picked up on a point that has been made by many in Spain: Real Madrid’s approach to the Negreira case has changed since Barcelona left The Superleague project, which united the Clasico giants.

“If the discourse has changed, it’s because last year there was agreement on certain projects, and now, seeing that these projects haven’t come to fruition, and we have an agreement with UEFA because what we seek is peace in football, and others apparently don’t.”

Florentino Perez’s 12-month swing

There is little doubt that Perez has U-turned on his discourse over the past year. During his General Assembly speech in 2024, Perez skated over the Negreira case, noting that ‘clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona need to help each other’. This time round, Perez went hard on Barcelona, saying that it was impossible for Real Madrid to turn the page on the case.