Florentino Pérez looked across the room on Tuesday evening and said, plainly, that what Barcelona had done was a theft. The La Liga title that Hansi Flick's side won at Camp Nou on May 10 — sealed with a 2-0 victory over Real Madrid in El Clasico — was, in the Real Madrid president's framing, not earned on merit.
He invoked the Negreira case. Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, the former vice president of the Spanish football refereeing committee, received payments totalling millions of euros from Barcelona over a number of years. The case has been the subject of criminal and sports corruption investigations since 2023. Barcelona have consistently denied any wrongdoing, maintaining the payments were for legitimate technical reports.
Pérez disagrees. He told the assembled press that Real Madrid have drafted a formal dossier documenting their concerns and that this document would be submitted to UEFA. Justice, he said, would be done.
The timing is pointed. Barcelona have just won their second consecutive La Liga title under Flick with 91 points, lost just twice in the league all season, and won all 17 home games. To attribute that to corruption rather than to the coaching of a German manager who has transformed the club's culture and extracted extraordinary performances from a young squad is a claim that will draw fierce pushback.
Barcelona's official response has not yet been issued, but the club have previously described the Negreira narrative as politically motivated and legally unfounded. The investigation into the case has continued for over two years without resulting in formal sanctions against the club.
What Pérez's intervention does is place the Negreira case back at the centre of La Liga's end-of-season conversation, at the precise moment Barcelona are celebrating. It is a calculated provocation. Whether UEFA acts on any dossier, and how the ongoing legal proceedings develop, will determine whether it amounts to anything beyond that.
For now, Barcelona are champions. And Florentino Pérez wants everyone to know he does not accept that result.
