The president of the La Liga club Real Madrid Florentino Pérez is set to appear before a Spanish court over defamation lawsuit made by FC Barcelona, according to Marca. This is just a conciliation hearing where the Pérez is expected to reconsider the things he said at a press conference last May. The hearing is billed to take place on the 25th of November at 9:40 a.m. at a Madrid courthouse.
The Real Madrid president is expected by the Catalan club to retract his allegedly defamatory statements. The next steps in the legal fracas will be determined by how Pérez replies. If he falls to show up to court, or if he does show up but fails to swallow his words, Barcelona is ready to file a criminal complaint against the octogenarian.
The people at Barça, per Marca, view Pérez’s words as “an outrage and an attempt to destabilise the club and the team.”
What were Pérez’s words?
His words (parts of which will be reproduced below, as reported by Marca), broadly taken, charge Barça will institutional corruption, bribery with the intent to gain favouritism. He brings up the infamous Negreira case, and accuses the Catalan club of being favoured by League authorities, to detriment of other clubs, particularly Real Madrid.
Here are the words:
The corruption in the Negreira case is systemic. It’s the biggest scandal in history. And to have to listen to the president of the CTA saying that these are things we should forget… But how can we forget them? We’re preparing a 500-page dossier that we’re going to send to UEFA… I’ve already spoken with them. There’s no precedent for this in the history of world football. Real Madrid members are with me in my fight against Negreira. It’s not always Real Madrid that suffers; other teams do too. Barça always benefits. How can we forget the biggest corruption case in history? Let’s see if we’re serious and UEFA finally gets involved in this matter, which they will, because they can’t allow the most important football, which is European football , to be under suspicion of corruption paid for over 20 years.”
He also added:
“I’ve been here I don’t know how many seasons and I’ve only won seven Champions Leagues and seven Leagues, which could have been 14 because 7 Leagues were stolen from me ,” he also asserted.”
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