When attacked, Florentino counterattacks. Accused by a former police commissioner of having maintained rather murky links with Spanish referees – of having corrupted them, let’s say things as they are – the president of Real Madrid was quick to react with a press release issued Tuesday.
He thus claims to have “ordered the immediate filing of the corresponding legal action against former Commissioner Villarejo due to the false accusations launched on the Catalan radio station RAC1”.
Invited on the radio to discuss his investigations into Sandro Rosell – the former Barcelona president suspected at the time of being linked to the Catalan independence movement – and which ultimately led to the corruption case in the Negreira affair, the former police commissioner explained that Barça was not the only club to engage in such practices.
“The same thing” at Real Madrid
“In a way, at Real Madrid, before the Negreira case, the same thing had already been detected,” assured José Manuel Villarejo, specifying that if the Barça case had been presented to the courts, it seemed “impossible” The same goes for Madrid’s sworn enemy.
As a reminder, Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu (his successor at the head of Barça between 2014 and 2020) were accused last week of the crime of corruption, just like the Barcelona institution, in the Negreira affair, named after this former head of refereeing paid for giving advice to the Catalan club.